what hath been so temperately learnedly and judiciously written by Monsieur Daille our Protestan-Perron And what the same Lord in a Treatise which will shortly be publisht saith concerning the Popish Perron viz. Him I can scarce ever laudare in one sense that is quote but I must laudare in the other that is praise who hath helpt the Church to all the advantages which wit learning industry judgment and eloquence could add unto her is as true of this our Protestant I shall add but one Lords Testimony more viz. the Lord George Digbies in his late Letters concerning Religion in these words p. 27 28. The reasons prevalent with me whereon an inquiring and judicious person should be obliged to rely and acquiesce are so amply and so learnedly set down by Monsieur Daillé in his Employ des Peâ—â—s that I think little which is material or weighty can be said on this subject that his rare and piercing observation hath not anticipated Were it needful to wander to Foreigners for Testimonies I could tell you how highly this Author is esteemed by the Learned and Famous Doctor Andr. Rivet upon whole importunity his Book des Images and other Tracts have been translated but writing to Englishmen I will only name the judicious Doctor Jer. Taylor Libert of Proph. Sect. 8. n. 4. in these words I shall chuse such a topick as makes no invasion upon the great reputation of the Fathers which I desire should be preserved sacred as it ought For other things let who please read Mr. Daillé du vrai usage des Peres Et siquis eueulo locus inter Oscines I must ingenuously profess that it was the reading of this rational Book which first convinced me that my study in the French Language was not ill employed which hath also enabled me to commend this to the World as faithfully translated by a judicious hand And that if there were no other use of the Fathers there is very much while Testem quem quis adducit pro se tenetur accipere contra se is a rule in reason as well as Civil Law and that the works of Cord. Perron for whose monstrous understanding they are the words of Viscount Faulkland p. 59. Bellarmine and Bironius might with most advantage to their party and no disgrace to them have been employed in seeking citations being built upon the principle That whatever the Fathers witness to be tradition and the doctrine of the Church must be received of all for such and so relied on And this principle being here throughly examined You have here as sufficient a constitation of Perrons Book against K. J. and by consequence of the Marquess of Worcesters against K. C. and Dr. Vanes and other Epitonizers of the Cardinal as you have of Mr. Cressys in the Preface to the Lord Faulkland by the learned I. P. Chr. Coll. Aug. 1. 1651. T. S. THE PREFACE ALl the Difference in Religion which is at this day betwixt the Church of Rome and the Protestants lies in some certain Points which the Church of Rome maintaineth as important and necessary Articles of the Christian Faith Whereas the Protestants on the contrary neither believe nor will receive them for such For as for those things which the Protestants believe for their part and which they conceive to be the Fundamentals of Religion they are so evidently and undeniably such as that even their Adversaries themselves do also allow of and receive them as well as they for as much as they are both clearly delivered in the Scriptures and expresly set down by the Ancient Councils and Fathers and are indeed unanimously received by the greatest part of Christians in all Ages and Parts of the World Such for example are these Maxims following Namely That there is a God who is Supreme over all and who created the Heavens and the Earth That having created Man after his own Image this Man revolting from his Obedience is faln together with his whole Posterity into most extreme and eternal misery and become infected with Sin as with a mortal Leprosie and is therefore obnoxious to the Wrath of God and liable to his Curse That the Merciful Creator pitying Mans Estate graciously sent his Son Jesus Christ into the World That his Son is God Eternal with him and that having taken Flesh upon himself in the Womb of the Virgin Mary and become Man He hath done and suffered in this Flesh all things necessary for our Salvation having by this means sufficiently expiated for our Sins by his Blood and that having finished all this he is ascended again into Heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father from whence He shall one day come to judge all Mankind rendering to every one according to their Works That to enable us to communicate of his Salvation by His Merits He sendeth us down His Holy Spirit proceeding both from the Father and the Son and who is also one and the same God with Them in such sort as that these Three Persons are notwithstanding but One GOD who is Blessed for ever That this Spirit enlightens our Vnderstanding and begets Faith in us whereby we are justified That after all this the LORD sent his Apostles to Preach this Doctrine of Salvation throughout the whole World That These have planted Churches and placed in each of them Pastors and Teachers whom we are to hear with all reverence and to receive from them Baptism the Sacrament of our Regeneration and the Holy Eucharist or Lords Supper which is the Sacrament of our Communion with Jesus Christ That we are likewise all of us bound to love GOD and our Neighbour very fervently observing diligently that Holy Doctrine which is laid down unto us in the Books of the New Testament which have been inspired by His Spirit of Truth as also those other of the Old there being nothing either in the one or in the other but what is most true These Articles and some other few the like which there perhaps may be are the substance of the Protestants whole Belief and if all other Christians would but content themselves with these there would never be any Schism in the Church But now their Adversaries add to these many other Points which they press and command Men to believe as necessary ones and such as without believing of which there is no possible hope of Salvation As for example That the Pope of Rome is the Head and Supreme Monarch of the whole Christian Church throughout the World That He or at least the Church which he acknowledgeth a true one cannot possibly erre in matter of Faith That the Sacrament of the Eucharist is to be adored as being really Jesus Christ and not a piece of Bread That the Mass is a Sacrifice that really expiates the Sins of the Faithful That Christians may and ought to have in their Churches the Images of God and of Saints to which they are to use Religious Worship bowing down before them That it is
first Centuries did the Cardinal denies his Sequel replying among other things that to be of the Communion of the Ancients a Man ought not only to believe what they believed but also to believe it in the same manner and in the same Degree that they did that is to say to believe as Necessary to Salvation what they believed as Necessary to Salvation and to believe as profitable to Salvation what they held for such and for lawful and not repugnant to Salvation what they held for lawful and not repugnant to Salvation And thus he goes on and gives us a long and exact Division of the different Degrees of Necessity which may and ought to be considered in all Propositions touching Religion I could heartily wish that this Occasion had carried on this Learned Prelate so far as to have made an Exact Application of this Doctrine and to have truly enformed us of what the greatest part of the World is at this day Ignorant namely in what Degree each Point of the Christian Faith is held either by the Church of Rome or by the Ancient Fathers what things are absolutely Necessary in Religion and what are those other things that are necessary under some certain Conditions only which again are necessary by the necessity of the Means and which by the necessity of the Precept as he there speaks that is to say which are those things that we ought to observe either by reason of their Profit as being Means which are profitable to Salvation and which we are to observe by reason of the Commandment only being enjoined us by such an Authority as we owe Obedience to and after all these Points Which again All and every of the Faithful are bound to believe Expresly and which are those that it is sufficient to believe in gross only and by an Iâ—plicite Faith and Lastly which are those things that we ought actually to do and which are those that it is sufficient if we approve of them only though we do them not So that it appeareth clearly out of these Words of his that to be able to know what the Belief of the Fathers hath been especially in the Points now in debate we ought first to be assured in what degree they believed the same And that this distinction was of very great Consideration with the antient Church it appears sufficiently out of the special regard which it always had unto it opening to or shutting the door against men first of all according to the things which they believed or not believed Secondly according to the different manners how they believed or not believed them For it Excommunicated those who rejected those things that it held as Necessary and so likewise those who pressed as things Necessary such as it held for things probable only But it received with all the sweetness that might be all those who either were Ignorant of or doubted of or indeed denied those things which it accounted though True yet not Necessarily so This appeareth clearly out of an Epistle written by Irenaeus to Victor Bishop of Rome set down by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History where this holy Man testifieth that although there had been before Victors time the same difference betwixt the Asian and the Roman Church touching the celebration of Easter-day yet notwithstanding they lived in peace and mutual amity together neither were any of the Asian Bishops ever excommunicated at Rome for their dissenting from them either in this or in any other Point but that rather on the contrary Polycarpus coming to Rome in the time of Pope Anicetus after they had had a Conference touching the differences betwixt them and each of them continued still firm in his former opinion yet notwithstanding did they not forbear to hold fair correspondence with each other and to communicate together Anicetus also out of the respect he bare to Polycarpus allowing him the use of his own Church to celebrate the Eucharist in Tertullian in his Book De Praescriptionibus adversus Haereticos requires only that the Rule of Faith as he calls it should continue in its proper Form and Order allowing every Man in all other particulars to make what Inquiries and Discourses he please and to exercise his Curiosity to the height of Liberty which is an evident Argument that He admitted into His Communion all those who not contradicting the Rule of Faith broached any other opinions if so be they held them but as Probable only and proposed not any thing which was contrary to the Rule of Faith The Author of the Apology of Origen published by Ruffinus under the name of Pamphilus was of the same opinion also For having confessed that Origen if not held yet published some certain very strange opinions touching the State of the Soul before the Birth of Man and concerning the Nature of the Stars he wiâ—hal maintains that these opinions do not presently make a Man an Hâ—retick and that even among the Doctors of the Church there was diversity of opinion touching the same But besides all this it is evident that this difference of judgment is even at this day to be found in the Church of Rome where you shall find the Jacobins and the Francâ—sâ—ans maintaining opinions utterly contradictory to each other touching the Conception of the Virgin Mary the one of them maintaining that she was conceived without sin whereas the other utterly deny it And that which makes me wonder the more is that they suffer such Contradictory opinions as these to be held amongst them in such particulars as considered barely in themselves seem yet to be of very great Importance As for Example a Man may either believe that we ougâ—â— to yield to the Cross the Adoration of Latria or if he please he may believe the contrary without losing either by reason of the one or the other the Communion of the Church and Salvation And yet notwithstanding if you but consider the thing in it self it will appear to be a matter of no such Indifferency as people take it for For if the Former of these Opinions be indeed True then must those that are of the other Opinion needs sin very grievously in not worshipping a Subject that is so worthy of Adoration But if it be False then are those Men that maintain the same guilty of a much greater sin by committing so horrible Idolatry What Point is there in Religion that seemeth to be of greater Importance than that touching the Foundation and Head of all Ecclesiastical Power upon the Authority whereof the whole Faith and State of the Church turneth And yet touching this Particular also which is of so great consequence do they suffer Men to maintain Contradictory Opinions some attributing this Dignity to the Pope and others to a General Council Now if the opinion of the First of these be true then is the Faith of the Later built upon a very Erroneous Ground but if the opinion of the Later be
true than doth the Faith of the Former depend upon a Cause which is not Infallible and consequently is Null Now these Different opinions are reconciled by saying that the Church accounting neither of these Beliefs as necessary to Faith a Man is not presently an Heretick for holding the False opinion of the two nor yet is he to be counted Orthodox meerly for holding the True one Seeing therefore that this Particular concerns the Communion of the Church and our Salvation also which dependeth thereon it will behove us to know certainly in what Degree the Ancients placed those Articles which are at this day so eagerly pressed upon the Protestants and whether they held them in the same or in a Higher or else in a Lower Degree of Necessity than they are now maintained by the Church of Rome For unless this be made very clear the Protestants though they should confess which yet they do not that the Fathers did indeed really believe the same might yet alledge for themselves that notwithstanding all this they are not bound to believe the same for as much as all opinions in Religion are not presently Obligatory and such as all Men are bound to believe seeing that there are some that are indeed necessary but some others that are not so They will answer likewise that these opinions are like to those at this day controverted betwixt the Dominicans and the Franciscans or to those other Points debated betwixt the Sorbonists and the Regulars wherein every one is permitted to hold what he pleaseth They will urge for themselves the Determination of the Council of Trent which in express terms distinguisheth betwixt the opinions of the Fathers where having thundred out an Anathema against all those that should maintain that the Administring of the Eucharist was necessary for little Infants they further declare that this Thunderbolt extended not to those Antient Fathers who gave the Communion to little Infants for as much as they maintained and practised this being moved thereunto upon Probable Reasons only and not accounting it necessary to Salvation Seeing therefore that some Errors which have been condemned by Councils may be maintained in such a certain Degree without incurring thereby the danger of their Thunderbolts by the same reason a Man may be ignorant of and even deny some Truths also without running the hazard of being Anathematized Who can assure us may the Protestants further add that the Articles which we reject are not of this kind and such as that though perhaps they may be true it is nevertheless lawful for us not to believe My opinion therefore is that there is no Man now that seeth not that it concerns the Doctors of the Roman Church if they mean to convince their Adversaries out of the Fathers first to make it appear unto them that the Antients held the said Points not only as True but as Necessary also and in the very same Degree of Necessity that they now hold them Now this must needs prove a business of most extream Difficulty and much greater here than in any of the other particulars before proposed And I shall alledge no other Argument for the proof of this than that very Decree we cited before where the Council of Trent hath declared that the Fathers did not Administer the Communion to Infants out of any opinion that it was necessary to Salvation but did it upon some other probable Reasons only For we have not only very good reason to doubt whether the Fathers held this opinion and followed this practice as probable only but it seemeth besides with all Reverence to that Council be it spoken to appear evidently enough out of their Writings that they did hold it as Necessary For do but hear the Fathers themselves and St. Augustine in the first place who saith That the Churches of Christ hold by an Antient and as I conceive saith he an Apostolical Tradition that without Baptism and the Communicating of the Lords Table no Man can come either into the Kingdom of God or unto Salvation or Eternal Life And afterwards having as he conceives proved this out of the Scriptures he addeth further Seeing therefore that no Man can hope either for Eternal Life or Salvation without Baptism and the Body and Blood of Christ thus doth he call the Sacrament of the Eucharist according to the language of his Time as hath been proved by so many Divine Testimonies in vain is it promised to Infants without the participating of these And some three Chapters before treating of those words of our Saviour in S. John Except you eat my Flesh and drink my Blood you can have no Life in you which words he understandeth both there an◠〈◊〉 where of the Communicating of the Eâ—charist he makes a long Discourse to prove that they extend as well to little Infants as to people of riper Ag◠〈◊〉 there any man saith he that dares affirm that thiâ— spâ—ech belongeth not to little 〈…〉 oâ— that they may have life in them without participating of this Body and of this Bloâ—d And this is this constant manner of speaking in eight or ten other Passages in his Works which are too long to be here inserted Pope Innocent I his Contemporany speaketh also after the same manner proving against the Pelagians that Baptism is Necessary for Infants to render them capable of Eternal Life for as much as without Baptism they cannot Communicate of the Eâ—charist which is necessary to Salvation S. Cyprian also long before them spake to the very same sense and this Maldonate affirmeth to have been the opinion of the six first Centuries These things considered we must needs think one of these two things following namely that either the Council of Trent by its Declaration hath made that which hath been to be as if it never had been which is a Power that the Poet Agathâ— in Aristotle would not allow to God himself or else that the Fathers of this Council either out of forgetfulness or otherwise mistook themselves in this account of theirs touching the opinion of the Ancient Church in this particular which in my judgment is the more favourable and the more probable Conceit of the two and if so I shall then desire no more For if these great Personages who were chosen with so much Care and Circumspection out of all parts of Christendom and sent to Trent to deliberate upon and determine a Business of the greatest Importance in the World and were directed by the Legats of so exquisite a Wisdom and digested their Decrees with a judgment so Ripe and slow-paced as that there is scarcely any one word in them but hath its Design if after all this I say these Men should be â—ound to have erred in this their Inquiry in affirming that the Fathers held only as Probable that which they evidently appear to have held as Necessary If Pope Pius VI. with his whole Consistory consisting of
its opinion publickly touching the Points at this day controverted it is as impossible that many together that lived in the same time should represent it unto us as that one single person should How could they possibly have seen that which lay as yet concealed How could they possibly measure their Belief by such a Rule as was not yet visible to the World The Chiliasts alledge the Testimonies not of one not of two but of a very great number of the most eminent and the most ancient among the Fathers who were all of their opinion as we shall see hereafter The Answer that is ordinarily made to the Objection is That the Church having not as yet declared its sence touching this Point the Testimonies of these Men bind us not to believe the same which is an evident Argument that a great number in this case signifies no more than a small in the representing unto us what the Belief of the Church hath been and that it is necessary that either by some General Council or else by some other publick way it must have declared its judgment touching any Question in debate that so we may know whether the Fathers have been of the same judgment or no. So that according to this Account we are to raise up again the whole Ancient Church and to call it to account touching every of these particular Points now debated touching which the Testimonies of the Fathers are alledged it being impossible otherwise to give any certain judgment whether that which they say be their own private or else the publick Opinion that is to say whether it be fit to be believed or not So that any man that is but of the meanest judgment may easily perceive how that it is not only a difficult but also almost an impossible thing to gather out of the Writings of the Fathers so much light as is necessary we should have for our satisfaction in matters of so great importance CHAP. X. Reason 10. That it is a very hard matter to know whether the Opinions of the Fathers touching the Controversies of these Times were received by the Church Vniversal or but by some part of it only which yet is necessarily to be known before we can make use of any Allegations out of them BUT suppose that a Father relieving us in this difficult or rather impossible business should tell us in express terms that what he proposeth is the sense and opinion of the Church in his time yet would not this quite deliver us out of the doubtful condition we are in For besides that their words are many times in such cases as these liable to exception suppose that it were certainly and undoubtedly so yet would it concern us then to examine what that Church was whereof he speaketh whether it were the Church Vniversal or only some Particular Church and whether it were that of the whole World or that of some City Province or Country only Now that this is a matter of no small importance is evident from hence because that the opinions of the Church Vniversal in Points of Faith are accounted infallible and necessarily true whereas those of Particular Churches are not so but are confessed to be subject to Errour So that the Question being here touching the Faith which ought not to be grounded upon any thing save what is infallibly true it will concern us to know what the judgment of the Church Vniversal hath been seeing the opinion of no Particular Church can do us any service in this case And that this distinction is also otherwise very necessary appears evidently by this because that the opinions and customs which have been commonly received by the greatest part of Christendom have not always presently taken place in each Particular Church and again those which have been received in some certain Particular Churches have not been entertained by all the rest Thus we find in story that the Churches of Asia minor kept the Feast of Easter upon a different day from all the other parts of Christendom and although the business it self seems to be of no very great importance yet did it nevertheless cause a world of stir in the Church Victor Bishop of Rome by reason of this little difference excommunicating all Asia minor Now each party here alledged their Reasons and Apostolical Tradition for what they did speaking with so great confidence in the justification of their own opinion as that hearing them severally a man would verily believe that each of their opinions was the very sense of the whole Church which notwithstanding was but the opinion of one part of it only The greatest part of Christendom held the Baptism of Hereticks to be good and effectual and received all those who forsaking their Heresie desired to be admitted into the Communion of the Church without re-baptizing them as appears out of St. Cyprian who confesseth that this had also been the custom formerly even in the African Churches themselves And yet notwithstanding Firmilianus Archbishop of Caesaria in Cappadocia testifies that the Churches of Cappadocia had time out of mind believed and practised the contrary and had also in his time so declared and ordained together with the Churches of Galatia and Cilicia in a full Synod held at the City Iconium And about the same time also St. Cyprian and the Bishops of Africk fell upon the same business and embraced this opinion of Re-baptization of Hereticks The Acts of the Council held at Carthage are yet extant where you have 87 Bishops who with one unanimous consent established the same The Custom at Rome in Tertullians time was to receive into the Communion of the Church all Fornicators and Adulterers after some certain Penances which they enjoyned them Tertullian who was a Montanist exclaimed fearfully against this custom and wrote a Book expresly against it which is also extant among his works at this day Who now that should read this Piece of his would not believe that it was the general Opinion of all Catholicks that such sinners were not to be excluded from Penance and the Communion of the Church And yet for all this it is evident out of a certain Epistle of St. Cyprian that even some of the Catholick Bishops of Africa were of the contrary perswasion and the Jesuit Petavius is further of opinion that this Indulgency was not allowed nor practised in the Churches of Spain till a long time after and that the Ancient Rigour which excluded for ever such Offenders from the Communion of the Church was in practice among them till the time of Pacianus Bishop of Barcellona who left not any hopes of Ecclesiastical Absolution either to Idolaters Murtherers or Adulterers as may be seen in his Exhortation to Repentance In the year of our Lord 364. the Council of Laodicea ordained that none but the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament should be read in Churches giving us withal a Catalogue of the said Books
Invention being ashamed to make use of it any longer And to say truth that which these Men answer by way of excusing the said Popes is not any whit more probable namely That they took the Council of Nice and that of Sardica in which those Canons they alledge are really found for one and the same Council For whom will these Men ever be able to perswade That two Ecclesiastical Assemblies betwixt which there passed near twenty two whole years called by two several Emperors and for Matters of a far different nature the one of them for the Explanation of the Christian Faith and the other for the Re-establishing of two Bishops in their Thrones and in Places very far distant from each other the one at Nicaea in Bithynia the other at Sardica a City of Illyricum the Canons of which two Councils are very different both in substance number and authority the one of them having always been received generally by the whole Church but the other having never been acknowledged by the Eastern Church should yet notwithstanding be but one and the same Council How can they themselves endure this who are so fierce against the Greeks for having offered to attribute which they do notwithstanding with more appearance of truth to the Sixth Council those CII Canons which were agreed upon ten years after at Constantinople in an Assembly wherein one party of the Fathers of the Sixth Council met How came it to pass that they gave any credit to the Ancient Church seeing that in the Greek Collection of her Ancient Canons those of the Council of Sardica are quite left out and in the Latin Collection of Dionysius Exiguus made at Rome eleven hundred years since they are placed not with those of the Council of Nice nor yet immediately after them as if they all made up but one Body betwixt them but are put in a place a great way behind after the Canons of all the General Councils that had been held till that very time he lived in And how comes it to pass that these Ancient Popes who alledged these Canons if they believed these Councils to be both one did not say so The African Bishops had diverse and sundry times declared That these Canons which were by them alledged were not at all to be found in their Copies Certainly therefore if those who had cited them had thought the Council of Nice and that of Sardica to have been both but one Council they would no doubt have made answer That 〈◊〉 Canons were to be found in this pretended Second Part of the Council of Nice among those which had been agreed upon at Sardica especially when they saw that these careful Fathers for the clearing of the Controversie betwixt them had resolved to send to this purpose as far as Constantinople and Alexandria And yet for all this there is not the least Syllable tending this way said by them And certainly if the Canons of the Council of Sardica had been in those days reputed as a part of the Council of Nice it is a very strange thing that so many Learned and Religious Prelates as there were at that time in Africk as namely Aurelius Alypius and even S. Augustine that glorious Light not of the African onely but of the whole Ancient Church should have been so ignorant in this particular But it is a wonder beyond all belief that three Popes and their Legates should leave their Party in an Ignorance so gross and so prejudicial to their own Interest it being in their power to have relieved them in two words We may safely then conclude That these Popes Zozimus and Boniface had no other Copies of the Council of Nice than what we have and also that they did not believe that the Canons of the Council of Sardica were a part of the Council of Nice but that they rather purposely alledged some of the Canons of Sardica under the name of the Canons of the Council of Nice And this they did according to that Maxim which was in force with those of former times and is not utterly laid aside even in our own namely That for the advancing of a Good and Godly Cause it is lawful sometimes to use a little Deceit and to have recourse to your Piae Fraudes They therefore firmly believing as they did That the Supremacy of their See over all other Churches was a Business of great importance and would be very profitable to all Christendom we are not to wonder if for the establishing this right on themselvs they made use of a little Legerdemain alledging Sardica for Nice reckoning with themselves that if they brought their Design about this small Failing of theirs would in process of time be abundantly satisfied for by the benefit and excellency of the thing it self Yet notwithstanding this Opposition made by the African Fathers against the Church of Rome Pope Leo not many years after writing to the Emperour Theodosius did not forbear to make use of the old Forgery citing one of the Canons of the Council of Sardica for a Legitimate Canon of the Council of Nice which was the cause that the Emperour Valentinian also and his Empress Galla Placidia writing in the behalf of the said Pope Leo to the Emperour Theodosius affirmed to him for a certain Truth That both all Antiquity and the Canons of the Council of Nice also had assigned to the Pope of Rome the Power of judging of Points of Faith and of the Prelates of the Church Leo having before possessed them That this Canons of the Council of Sardica was one of the Canons of Nice And thus by a strong perseverance in this Pious Fraud they have at length so fully perswaded a great part of Christendom that the Council of Nice had established this Supremacy upon the Pope of Rome that it is now generally urged by all of them whenever this Point is controverted I must crave pardon of the Reader for having so long insisted on this Particular and perhaps longer somewhat than my Design required yet in my judgment it may be of no small importance to the Business in hand For will the Protestants here say seeing that two Popes Bishops and Princes which all Christians have approved have notwithstanding thus foisted in false Wares what ought we to expect from the rest of the Bishops and Doctors Since these Men have done this in the beginning of the Fifth Century an Age of so high repute for its Faith and Doctrine what have they not dared to do in the succeeding Ages If they have not forborn so foully to abuse the sacred Name of the Council of Nice the most Illustrious and Venerable Monument of Christianity next to the Holy Scriptures what other Authors can we imagine they would spare And if in the face of so Renowned an Assembly and in the presence of whatever Africk could shew of Eminency both for Sanctity and Learning and even under the eye of the great S. Augustine
and that there can be no great danger either in putting in or at least in leaving any thing in that may yield assistance to it whatsoever the issue of either of these may in the end prove to be And hence hath it come to pass that we have so many ancient Forgeries and also so many strange stories of Miracles and of Visions many taking a delight in feigning as S. Hierome says great Combats which they have had with Devils in Desarts all which things are meerly fabulous in themselves and acknowledged too to be so by the most intelligent of them yet notwithstanding are tolerated and sometimes also recommended to them forasmuch as they account them useful for the setling or encreasing either of the Faith or Devotion of the People What will you say if at this day there are some even of those Men who make profession of being the greatest haters in the world of these subtilties who cannot nevertheless put forth any Book but they must needs be lopping off or falsifying whatsoever doth not wholly agree with the Doctrine they hold for true fearing as themselves say lest such things coming to the eye of the simple Common People might infect them and possess their Heads with new Fancies So firmly hath this Opinion been of old rooted in the Nature of Man Now I will not here dispute whether this proceeding of theirs be lawful or not I shall only say by the way That in my judgment it is a very great shame for the Truth to be established or defended by such falsifications and shifts as if it had not sufficient Weapons both defensive and offensive of its own but that it must be fain to borrow of its Adversary and it is besides a very dangerous course too because that the discovery of any one Cheat oftentimes renders their Cause who practised it wholly suspected insomuch that by making use of such slights as these in Christian Religion either for the gaining to you or confirming the faith of some of the simpler People it is to be feared that you may give distaste to the more understanding sort and so by this means at length may chance to lose the Affections of the simpler sort too But whatsoever this course of Cheating be either in it self or in its Consequences it is sufficient for my purpose that it hath been a long time practised in the Church in matters of Religion for proof whereof I shall here produce some Instances The Hereticks have always been accused of using this Artifice but I shall not here set down what Alterations have been made by the Ancientest of them even in the Scriptures themselves If you would have a Taste of this Practice of theirs go but to Tertullian and Epiphanius and you shall there see how Marcion had clipped and altered the Gospel of S. Luke and those Epistles of S. Paul which he allowed to be such Neither have those other of the Ages following been any whit more conscientious in this Particular as may appear by those Complaints made by Ruffinus in his Exposition upon the Apostle's Creed and in another Treatise written by him purposely on this Subject which is indeed contradicted by S. Hierome but onely in his Hypothesis as to what concerned Origen but not absolutely in his Thesis and by the like Complaints of S. Cyril and divers others of the Ancients and among the Moderns by those very Persons also who have put forth the General Councils at Rome who inform us in the Preface to the First Volume That Time and the Fraud of the Hereticks have been the cause that the Acts of the said Councils have not come to our hands neither entire nor pure and sincere that which hath remained of them and before they grievously bewail that we should be thus deprived of so great and so precious a Treasure Now this Testimony of theirs to me is worth a thousand others seeing it comes from such who in my opinion are evidently interested to speak quite otherwise For if the Church of Rome who is the pretended Mistress and Trustee of the Faith hath suffered any part of the Councils to perish and be lost which is esteemed by them as the Code of the Church what then may the rest have suffered also And what may not the Hereticks and Schismaticks have been able to do And if all these Evidences have been altered by their Fraud how shall we be able by them to come to the knowledge of the Sense and Judgment of the Ancients I confess I am very much amaâ—ed to see these Men make so much reckoning of the Acts of the Councils and to make such grievous Complaints against the Hereticks for having suppressed some of them For if these things are of such use why then do they themselves keep from us the Acts of the Council of Trent which is the most considerable Council both for them and their Party that hath been held in the Christian Church these eight hundred years If it be a Crime in the Hereticks to have kept from us these precious Jewels why are not they afraid lest the blame which they lay on others may chance to return upon themselves But doubtless there is something in the Business that renders these Cases different and I confess I wonder they publish it not the simpler sort for want of being otherwise informed thinking perhaps though it may be without cause that the reason why the Acts of this last Council are kept so close from them is because they know that the publishing of them would be either prejudicial or at least unprofitable to the Greatness of the Church of Rome And they also again on the other side conceive that in those other Acts which they say have been suppressed by the Hereticks there were wonderful Matters to be found for the greater advancing and supporting of the Church of Rome Whatsoever the Reason be I cannot but commend the Ingenuity of these Men who notwithstanding their Interest which seemeth to engage them to the contrary have yet nevertheless confessed That the Councils which we have at this day are neither entire nor uncorrupted But let us now examine whether or no even the Orthodox Party themselves have not also contributed something to this Alteration of the Writings of the Primitive Church Epiphanius reports That in the true and most correct Copies of S. Luke it was written that Jesus Christ wept and that this passage had been alledged by S. Irenaeus but that the Catholicks had blotted out this Word fearing that the Hereticks might abuse it Whether this Relation be true or false I must relie upon the Credit of the Author But this I shall say That it seems to me a clear Argument That these Ancient Catholicks would have made no great scruple of blotting out of the Writings of the Fathers any Word that they found to contradict their own Opinions and Judgment and that with the same Liberty that they inform us
Observation of the Lords Day by Pius both Bishops of Rome which is a thing Eusebius never so much as dreamt of as may appear out of some Manuscripts of him where you shall find him wholly muâ—e as to these Points wherewith the Moderns so much please themselves But to return and to take the Times all along as they lie we may observe that this Licence grew stronger daily as the Times grew worse because that the greater the distance of time was from the Author 's own Age the more difficult the discovery of these Forgeries must necessarily be the Example also of some of the most eminent Persons among the Ancients who had sometimes made use of these sleights adding on the other side boldness to every one and courage to venture upon what they had done before them For I pray you is it not a strange thing that the Legats of Pope Leo in the year 451. in the midst of the Council of Chalcedon where were assembled 600 Bishops the very Flower and Choice of the whole Clergy should have the confidence to alledge the VI Canon of the Council of Nice in these very Words That the Church of Rome hath always had the Primacy Words which are no more found in any Greek Copies of the Councils than are those other pretended Canons of Pope Zozimus neither do they yet appear in any Greek or Latin Copies nor so much as in the Edition of Dionysius Exiguus who lived about fifty years after this Council When I consider that the Legats of so holy a Pope would at that time have fastned such a Wen upon the Body of so Venerable a Canon I am almost ready to think that we scarcely have any thing of Antiquity left us that is entire and uncorrupt except it be in Matters of Indifferency or which could not have been corrupted without much noise and to take this Proceeding of theirs which is come to our knowledge as an advertisement purposely given us by Divine Providence to let us see with how much consideration and advisedness we ought to receive for the Council of Nice and of Constantinople and for Cyprian and Hieroâ—o's Writings that which goes at this day for such About seventy four years after the Council of Chalcedon Dionysius Exiguus whom we before mentioned made his Collection at Rome which is 〈◊〉 printed at Paris Cum Privilegio Regiâ— out of very ancient Manuscripts Whosoever shall but look diligently Into this Collection shall find divers alterations in it one whereof I shall instance in only to shew how ancient this Artifice hath been among Christians The last Canon of the Council of Laâ—dicea which is the 163. of the Greek Code of the Church Universal forbidding to read in Churches any other Books than those which are Canonical gives us withal a long Catalogue of them Dionysius Exiguus although he hath indeed inserted in his Collection Num. 162. the beginning of the said Canon which forbiddeth to read any other Books in the Churches besides the sacred Volumes of the Old and New Testament yet hath he wholly omitted the Catalogue or List of the said Books fearing as I conceive lest the Tail of this Catalogue might scandalize the Church of Rome where many years before Pope Innocent had by an express Decree to that purpose put into the Canon of the Old Testament the Maccabees the Wisdom of Solomon Ecclesiasticus Tobit Judith c. of which Books the Fathers of the Council of Laodicea make no mention at all naming but XXII Books of the Old Testament and in the Catalogue of the New utterly omitting the Apocalypse If any Man can shew me any better reason of this suppression let him speak as for my part I conceive this the most probable that can be given however we are not at all bound to divine what the motive should be that made Dionysius out off that part of the Canon For whatsoever the reason were it serves the turn well enough to make it appear that at that time they made no great conscience to curtal if need were the very Text of the Canons themselves So that if we had not had the good luck to have had this Canon entire and perfect in divers other Monuments of Antiquity as namely in the Collections of the Greeks and also in the Councils of the French Church we should at this Day have been wholly ignorant what the judgment of the Fathers of Lâ—â—odices was touching the Canon of the holy Scripturâ—s which is one of the principal Controversies of these times It is true I confess that the Latins have their revenge upon the Greeks reproaching them in like manner because that in their Translation of the Code of the Canons of the African Church they have left the Books of the Maccabees quite out of the Roll of the Books of the Scripture which is set down in the 24. Canon of their Collection expresly against the Faith of all the Latin copies of this Collection both Printed and Manuscript as Cardinal Perron affirmeth and yet there are some others who assure us that no Book of Maccabees appears at all in this Canon in the Collection of Cresâ—bnius a Bishop of Africk not yet printed The Greek Cudâ— represents unto us VII Canons of the I Council of Constantinople which are in like manner found both in Balsamon and in Zonaras and also in the Greek and Latin Edition of the General Councils printed at Rome The three last of these do not appear at all in the Latine Code of 〈◊〉 though they are very considerable ones as to the business they relate to which is That Order in Proceeding in passing Judgment upon Bishops accused and in receiving such persons who forsaking their Communion with Hereticks desire to be admitted into the Church 〈…〉 very hard to say what should move the 〈…〉 this Council thus But this I am 〈…〉 in the VI. Canon which is one of those 〈…〉 hath omitted and which treateth of judging of Bishops accused there is not the least mention made of Appealing to Rome nor of any Reserved Cases wherein it is not permitted to any save only to the Pope himself to judge a Bishop the power of hearing and determining all such matters being here wholly and absolutely referred to the Provincial and Dioceâ—an Synods Now whether the Greeks added this tail to the Council of Constantinople which yet is not very probable or whether Dionysius or the Church of Rome curtalled this Council it will still that way also appear clearly that this boldness in gâ—lding or making Additions to Ecclesiastical Writings is not at all in use in these dayes After the Canons of Constantinople there follow in the Greek Code VIII Canons of the General Council of Ephâ—sus set down also both by Balsamon and Zonaras and printed with the Acts of the said Council of Ephesus in the First Tome of the Roman Edition But Dionysius Exiguus hath discarded them all not giving us any one of
which amount in all in the Old Testament to the number of twenty two only without making any mention at all of those other Books which Cardinal Perron calls Posthumous namely Ecclesiasticus the Book of Wisdom the Maccabâ—es Judith and Tobit All the Canons of this Council were afterwards inserted into the Code of the Church Universal where you have this very Canon also Num. 163. that is as much as to say they were received as Rules of the Catholick Church Who would believe now but that this Declaration of the Canon of the Scriptures was at that time received by all Christian Churches And yet notwithstanding you have the Churches of Africk meeting together in the Synod at Carthage about the year of our Lord 397. and ordaining quite contrary to the former Resolution of Laodicea that among those Books which were allowed to be read in Churches the Maccabees Judith Tobit Ecclesiasticus and the Book of Wisdom which two last they also reckon among the Books written by Solomon should be taken into the number Who knoweth not the difference that there was in the first Ages of Christianity betwixt the Eastern and the Western Churches touching the Fasting upon Saturdays the Church of Rome maintaining it is lawful and all the rest of the World accounting it unlawful Whence it was that we had that so bold Canon passed in the Council at Constantinople in Trullo in these words Vnderstanding that in the City of Rome in the time of the Holy Fast of Lent they fast on Saturdays contrary to the Custom and Tradition of the Church it seemeth good to this Holy Council that in the Roman Church they inviolably also observe that Canon which saith that whosoever shall be found to fast either upon the Lords day or upon the Saturday excepting only that one Saturday if he be a Clergie-man he shall be deposed but if be be of the Laity he shall be excommunicated Who knoweth not after how many several ways the Fast of Lent was Anciently observed in divers Churches an account whereof is given you by Irenaeus in that Pious Epistle of his which he wrote to Victor part whereof Eusebius setteth down in his Ecclesiastical History Who doth not also know that the opinions and expressions of the Greek Church touching Free-will and Predestination are extremely different from what the Church believed and taught in S. Augustines time and so downward And as concerning the Discipline of the Church do but hear Anastasius Bibliothecarius upon the VI Canon of the VII General Council which enjoyneth all Metropolitans to hold Provincial Synods once a year Neither let it at all trouble thee saith he that we have not this Decree seeing that there are some others found among the Canons whose Authority nevertheless we not admit of For some of them are in force and are observed in the Greek Church and others again in certain other Provinces only As for example the XVI and XVII Canons of the Council of Laodicea are observed only among the Greeks and the VI and the VIII Canons of the Council of Africk are received by none but the Africans only I could here produce divers other Examples but these may suffice to shew that the Opinions and Customs which have been received in one Part of the Church have not always been entertained in all the rest Whence it evidently follows that all that is acknowledged as the opinion or observation of the Church ought not therefore presently to pass for an Universal Law The Protestant alledgeth for the justifying his Canon of the Scriptures the Council of Laodicea before mentioned Thou answerest him perhaps that this indeed was the opinion of the Churches but it was only of some particular Churches I shall not here enter into an Examination whether this Answer be well grounded or not it is sufficient for me that I can safely then conclude from hence that according to this account before you can make use of any Opinion or Testimony out of any of the Fathers it is necessary that you first make it appear not only that it was the Opinion of the Church at that time but you must further also clearly demonstrate unto us what Churches opinion it was whether of the Church Universal or else of some Particular Church only It is objected against the Protestants that Epiphanius testifieth that the Church admitted not into the higher Orders of the Ministry any save those that were Virgins or professed Continency Now to make good this Allegation it is necessary that it be first proved that the Church he there speaks of was the Church Universal For will the Protestant reply upon you as Laodicea hath had as it seems a particular Opinion touching the Canon of the Scriptures possibly also Cyprus may in like manner have had its particular Resolutions touching the Ordination of the Clergy The like may be said of the greatest part of those other Observations and Opinions of the Ancient Church Now how difficult a business it will be to clear these Matters which are so full of perplexity and to distinguish of Antiquity at this so great a distance of time severing that which was Publick from what was Particular and that which was Provincial from what was National and what was National from that which was Vniversal any Man may be able to give some kind of guess but none can throughly understand save he that hath made trial of it Do but fancy to your selves a City that hath lain ruinated a thousand years no part whereof remains save onely the Ruines of Houses lying all along here and there confusedly all the rest being covered all over with Thorns and Bushes Imagine then that you have met with one that will undertake to shew you precisely where the Publick Buildings of the City stood and where the Private which were the Stones that belonged to the one and which belonged to the other and in a word who in these confused Heaps where the Whole lies all together will notwithstanding separate ye the one from the other The very same Task in a manner doth he undertake who ever shall go about truly and precisely to distinguish the Opinions of the Ancient Church This Antiquity is now of Eleven or Twelve hundred years standing and the Ruines of it are now onely left us in the Books of the Writers of that Time which also have met with none of the best entertainment in their Passage through the several Ages down to our time as we have shewed before How then dare we entertain the least hope that amidst this so great Confusion we should be able yet to distinguish the Pieces and to tell which of them honoured the Publick Temple and which went to the furnishing of Private Chappels onely especially considering that the Private ones have each of them ambitiously endeavoured to make their own pass for Publick For where is the Province or the City or the Doctor that hath not boastingly cried up
his own Opinions and Observations as Apostolical and which hath not used his utmost endeavour to gain them the Repute of being Vniversal S. Hierome allows every particular Province full liberty to do herein as they please Let every Province saith he abound in its own Sense and let them account of the Ordinances of their Ancestors as of Apostolical Laws It is true indeed that he speaks in this place onely of certain Observations of things which are in themselves indifferent But yet that which he hath permitted them in these Matters they have practised in all other I shall not here trouble my self to produce any other Reasons to prove the Difficulty of this Inquiry because I should then be forced to repeat a great part of that which hath been already delivered For if it be a very hard matter to attain to any certain knowledge what the Sense of the Writings of the Fathers is as we have proved before how much more difficult a thing will it be to discover whether their Opinions were the Opinions of the particular Churches wherein they lived or else were the Opinions of the Church Universal in their Age the same things which cause Obscurity in the one having as much or rather more reason of doing the like in the other And if you would fully understand how painful an Undertaking this is do but read the Disputations of the Learned of both Parties touching this Point where you shall meet with so many Doubts and Contradictions and such diversity of Opinions that you will easily conclude That this is one of the greatest Difficulties that is to be met withal throughout the whole Study of Antiquity CHAP. XI Reason XI That it is impossible to know exactly what the Belief of the Ancient Church either Vniversal or Particular hath been touching any of those Points which are at this day controverted amongst us BEfore we pass on to the Second Part of this Treatise it seemeth not impertinent to give the Reader this Last Advertisement and to let him know that though all these Difficulties here before represented were removed yet notwithstanding would it still be impossible for us to know certainly out of the Fathers what the Judgment of the whole Ancient Church whether you mean the Church Universal or but any considerable Part thereof hath been touching the Differences which are now on foot in Religion Now that we may be able to make the truth of this Proposition appear it is necessary that we should first of all explain the Terms We understand commonly by the Church especially in these Disputations either all those Persons in General who profess themselves to be of the said Church of what Condition or Quality soever they be or else in a stricter sense the Collective Body of all those who are set over and who are Representatives of the Church that is to say the Clergy So that whether you speak of the Church Universal or of some Particular Church as for example that of Spain or of Carthage this Term may be taken in either of these two senses For by the Church Universal we understand either all those Persons in general who live in the Communion of the Christian Church whether they be of the Laity or of the Clergy or else those Persons onely who are Ecclesiastici or Church-men as we now call them For in the Primitive Times all Christians that lived in the Communion of the Catholicks were called Ecclesiastici In like manner by the Church of Carthage is meant either generally All the Faithful that live in the particular Communion of the Christian Church of Carthage or else particularly and in a stricter sense the Bishop of Carthage with his whole Clergy Now I do not believe that there is any Man but will easily grant me that if we take the Church in the First sense it is impossible to know by way of Testimony given of the same what the Sense and Judgment of it hath been in each several Age touching all the Points of Christian Religion We may indeed collect by way of Discourse what hath been the Belief of the True Members of the Church For there being some certain Articles the Belief whereof is necessarily requisite for the rendring a Man such an one whosoever rightly understands which these Articles be he may certainly conclude that the True Church whether Universal or Particular hath believed the same But now in the first place this doth not extend to all the Points of Christian Religion but onely to those which are Necessary besides which there are divers others concerning which we may have not only different but even contrary Judgments too and yet not thereby hazard the loss either of the Communion of the Church or of our Inheritance of everlasting Salvation So then this Ratiocination concludeth not save onely of those who are the True Members of the Church For as for those who make but an outward Profession onely of the Truth it being not at all necessary that they should be saved there is in like manner no more necessity of their embracing those Beliefs which are requisite for that end They may under this Mask hide all manner of Opinions how Impious soever they be Lastly that which makes most for our purpose is That this Knowledge is acquired by Discourse whereas we speak here of such a Knowledge as is collected by the hearing of several Witnesses who give in their Testimonies touching the thing which we would know Now the Fathers having written with a purpose of informing us not what each particular Man believed in their time but rather what they thought fit that all Men should have believed we must needs conclude That certainly they have not told us all that they knew touching this particular And consequently therefore partly their Charity and partly also their Prudence may have caused them to pass by in silence all such Opinions either of whole Companies or of particular Persons as they conceived to be not so consonant to the Truth But supposing that they had not any of these considerations and that they had taken upon them to give us a just Account each Man of the Opinions of his particular Church wherein he lived it is evident however that they could never have been able to have attainēd to the end of this their Design For how is it possible that they should have been able to have learnt what the Opinion of every single Person was amongst so vast a Multitude which consisted of so many several Persons who were of so different both Capacities and Dispositions Who will believe that S. Cyprian for example knew all the several Opinions of each particular Person in his Diocess so as to be able to give us an account of the same Who can imagine but that among such a Multitude of People as lived in the Communion of his Church there must needs have been very many who differed in Opinion from him in divers Points of Religion Even
taken up all of them with their particular Charges and Imployments did not know of some opinions of the Prelates of their Age or that either their Modesty or their Charity or the little Eloquence and Repute they had abroad might have made them conceal the same The other Objection is drawn from hence because that these Doctors of the Ancient Church who held some opinions different from those which we read at this day in the Fathers did not publish them at all But I answer first of all that every Man is not able to do so In the next place those that were able were not always willing to do so Divers other Considerations may perhaps also have hindred them from so doing and if they are Wise and Pious Men they are never moved till they needs must And hence it is that oftentimes those opinions which have less truth in them do yet prevail because that Prudence which maintains the True Opinion is Mild and Patient whereas Rashness which defends the False is of a Froward Eager and Ambitious Nature But now let us but imagine how many of the Evidences of this Diversity of opinion may have been made away by those several ways before represented by us as namely having been either devoured by Time or suppressed by Malitious Men for fear lest they should let the World see the Traces of the Truth which they would have concealed But that I may not be thought to bring here only bare Conjectures without any proof at all I shall produce some Examples also for the confirming and clearing of this my Assertion Epiphanius maintains against Aerius whom he ranks among his Haeresiarchae or Arch Hereticks that a Bishop according to the Apostle Saint Paul and the Original Institution of the thing it self is more than a Priest and this he endeavours to prove in many words answering all the Objections that are made to the contrary If you but read the Passage I am confident that when you had done you would not stick to swear that what he hath there delivered was the general opinion of all the Doctors of the Church it being very unlikely that so Great and so Renowned a Prelate would so slatly have denied the opinion which he disputed against if so be any one of his own familiar friends had also maintained the same And yet for all this Saint Hierome who was one of the Principal Lights of our Western Church and who lived at the same time with Epiphanius who was his intimate Friend and a great admirer of his Piety saith expresly that Among the Ancients Bishops and Priests were the same the one being a name of Dignity and the other of Age. And that it may not be thought that this fell from him in discourse only he there falls to proving the same at large alledging several Passages of Scripture touching this Particular and he also repeats the same thing in two or three several places of his Works Whereby it evidently appears that even Positions which have been quite Contradictory to the opinions which have been delivered and maintained by some of the Fathers and proposed in what terms soever have notwithstanding been sometimes either maintained or at least tolerated by some others of 〈◊〉 less Authority S. Hierome himself hath â—alâ— extreamly foul upon Ruffinus and hath traduced divers of his opinions as most Pernicious and Deadly and yet notwithstanding we do not any where find that ever he was accounted as an Heretick by the rest of the Fathers But we shall have occasion hereafter to consider more at large of the like Examples and shall only at present observe that if those Books of S. Hierome which we mentioned a little before should chance to have been lost every Man would then assuredly have concluded with Epiphanius that no Doctor of the Ancient Church ever held that a Bishop and a Priest were one and the same thing in its Institution Who now after all this will assure us that among so many other opinions as have been rejected here and there by the Fathers and that too in as plain terms as these of Epiphanius none of them have ever been defended by some of the Learned of those times Or is it not possible that they may have held them though they did not write in defence of the same Or may they not perhaps have written also in deâ—ence of them and their Books have been since lost How small is the number of those in the Church who had the Ability or at least the 〈◊〉 to write And how much smaller is the number of thoâ—â— whose Wriâ—ings have been able to secure themselves against either the Injury of Time or the Malice of Men It is objâ—cted against the Protestants as we have touched before that S. Hierome commendeth and maintaineth the Adoration of Reliques But yet he himself testifieth that there were some Bishops who defended Vigilantius who held the contrary opinion whom he according to his ordinary Rhetorick calleth His Consorts in Wickedness Who knows now what these Bishops were and whether they deserved any such usage at S. Hieromes hands or no For the Expressions which he useth against them and against their opinion are so full of Gall and of Choler as that they utterly take away all credit from his Testimony But we have insisted long enough upon this Particular and shall therefore forbear to instance any further in others For as much therefore as it is Impossible to discover exactly out of the Fathers what hath been the sense and judgment of the Ancient Church whether taken Universally or Particularly or whether you take the Church for the whole Body of Believers or for the Prelates and Inseriour Clergy only I shall here conclude as formerly that the Writings of the Ancients are altogether Insufficient for the proving the Truth of any of those Points which are at this day controverted amongst Us. THE SECOND BOOK CHAP. I. That the Fathers are not of sufficient Authority for the Deciding of our Controversies in Religion Reason I. That the Testimonies given by the Fathers touching the Belief of the Church are not always True and Certain WE have before shewed how hard a matter it is to discover what the Sense of the Fathers hath been touching the Points at this day controverted in Religion both by reason of the small number of Books we have left us of the Fathers of the First Centuries and those too which we have treating of such things as are of a very different nature from our present Disputes and which besides we cannot be very well assured of by reason of the many Forgeries and monstrous Corruptions which they have for so long a time been subject to as also by reason of their Obscurity and Ambiguity in their Expressions and their representing unto us many times the Opinions rather of others than of their Authors besides those many other Imperfections which are found in them as namely their not informing us in
from the Father to the Son this doubt I say of his manifestly proveth that the Church had not as yet at that time embraced or concluded upon the former of these Opinions it being a thing utterly improbable that so modest a Man as S. Augustine was would have cast off the general Opinion of the Church and have taken up a particular Fancy of his own But the Passion wherewith S. Hierome was at that time carried away against Ruffinus a great part of the Learned Men of his time being also of the said Opinion easily wrought in him a belief that it was the Common Judgment and Opinion of the whole Christian Church From the same Root also sprung that Errour of John Bishop of Thessalonica if at least it be an Errour who affirmed That the Opinion of the Church was That Angels are not wholly Incorporeal and Invisible but that they have Bodies though of a very Rare and thin Substance not much unlike those of the Fire or the Air. For those who published the General Councils at Rome conceive this to have been his own private Opinion onely And if so neither shall we need at present to examine the Truth of this their Conceit you then plainly see that the Affection this Author bare to his own Opinion carried him so far away as to make him father upon the whole Church what was indeed but his own particular Opinion though otherwise he were a Man who was highly esteemed by the VII Council which not onely citeth him among the Fathers but honours him also with the Title of a Father Epiphanius must also be excused in the same manner where he assures us That the Church held by Apostolical Tradition the Custom which it had of meeting together thrice a Week for the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist which yet Petavius maketh evidently appear not to have been of Apostolical Institution The Mistakes of Venerable Bede noted and censured elsewhere by Petavius are of the fame nature also The Belief of the Church if I mistake not saith he is That our Saviour Christ lived in the Flesh Thirty three Years or there about till the time of his Passion And he saith moreover That the Church of Rome testifieth that this is Its Belief by the Marks which they yearly set upon their Tapers upon Good Friday whereon they always inscribe a Number of Tears which is less by Thirty three than the common Aera of the Christians He likewise saith in the same place That it is not lawful for any Catholick to doubt whether Jesus Christ suffered on the Cross the XV day of the Moon or not Now Petavius hath proved at large that both these Opinions which Beda delivers unto us as the Churches Belief are nothing less than what he would have them The curious Reader may observe many the like Carriages in the Writings of the Fathers but these here already set down in my judgment do sufficiently justifie the doubt which I have made namely that we ought not to receive as Certain Truths the Testimony which the Fathers give touching the Belief of the Church in their Time Nevertheless that we may not seem to make a breach upon the Honour and Reputation of the Fathers I say that though we should grant that all their Depositions and Testimonies in this Particular were certainly and undoubtedly True yet notwithstanding would they be of little use to us as to our present purpose For first of all there are but very few Passages wherein they testifie plainly and in direct Terms what the Belief of the Church in their Time hath been touching the Points now controverted amongst us This is the Business of an Historian rather than of a Doctor of the Church whose Office is to teach to prove and to exhort the People committed to his Charge and to correct their Vices and Errours telling them what they ought to do or believe rather than troubling them with Discourses of what is done or believed by others But yet when they do give their Testimony what the Belief and Discipline of the Church in their time was this Testimony of theirs ought not to extend save onely to what was apparently such and which besides was apparent to themselves too Now as we have formerly proved they could not possibly know the Sense and Opinions of every particular Christian that lived in their time nor yet of all the Pastors and Ministers who were set over them but of some certain Particular Christians onely Forasmuch therefore as it is confessed even by those very Men who have the Church in greatest esteem that the Belief of Particular Churches is not infallible we may very easily perceive that such Testimonies of the Fathers as these can standus in very little or no stead seeing they represent unto us such Opinions as are not always certainly and undoubtedly True and which consequently are so far from confirming and proving ours as that they rather stand in need of being examined aud proved themselves But yet suppose that the Church of Rome did hold that the Beliefs of Particular Churches were Infallible which yet it doth not yet would not this make any thing at all against the Protestants forasmuch as they are of the clean contrary Opinion Now it is taken for granted on all hands that Proofs ought to be fetched from such things as are confessed and acknowledged by your Adversary whom you endeavour to convince otherwise you will never be able to move him or make him quit his former Opinion Seeing therefore that the Testimonies of the Farthers touching the State of the Faith and Ecclesiastical Discipline of their Times are of this Nature it remaineth that we now consider their other Discourses wherein they have delivered themselves not as Witnesses deposing what they had seen but as Doctors instructing us in what they believed And certainly how Holy and Able soever they were it cannot be denied but that they were still Men and consequently were subject to Error especially in matters of Faith which is a Business so much transcending Humane Apprehension The Spirit of God onely was able to direct their Understandings and their Pens in the Truth and to withhold them from falling into any Error in like manner as it directed the Holy Prophets and Apostles while they wrote the Books of the Old and New Testament Now we cannot be any way assured that the Spirit of God was present always with them to enlighten their Understandings and to make them see the Truth of all those things whereof they wrote They neither pretend to this themselves nor yet doth any one that I know of attribute unto them this Assistance unless it be perhaps the Author of the Gloss upon the Decrees who is of Opinion that we ought to stand to all that the Fathers have written even to the least tittle who yet is very justly called to a round account for this by Alphonsus Ã
the Word of God as that all that went before them had both seen and acknowledged the same The Consideration whereof was both Pleasing and Useful unto them For what can more delight a Faithful Heart than to find that the chiefest and most Eminent Persons in the Church had long since held the same Opinions touching our Saviour Jesus Christ and His Grace that We now hold at this day But yet it does not hence presently follow that though these Holy men should have met with these Articles of our Faith in the Writings of their Predecessours only without finding any Foundation of them in the Canonical Scriptures they would notwithstanding firmly have believed and embraced the same contenting themselves with the Bare Authority of their Predecessours S. Augustine professeth plainly that in such a Case they might better have rejected them and not be blamed for so doing neither than have received them unless they would incur the imputation of being over Credulous For it is a point of too much Credulity to believe any thing without Reason and He further affirmeth that where men speak without either Scripture or Reason their bare Authority is not sufficient to oblige us to believe what they propose unto us So that it hence appeareth that Humane Testimonies are alledged not to prove the Truth of the Faith but only to shew the Clearness of it after it is once well grounded Now the Question at this day betwixt us and the Church of Rome is not concerning the Clearness of the Truth of the Articles they believe and press upon the World but it yet lies upon them to prove even the very Ground and Foundation of them Shew me therefore will a Protestant here say either out of some Text of Scripture or else by some Evident Reason that there is any such place as Purgatory and that the Eucharist is not Bread and that the Pope is the Monarch and Head of the Church Universal and then I shall be very glad to try if for our greater comfort we may be able to find in the Authors of the Third or Fourth Century these Truths embraced by the Fathers of those times But to begin with these is to invert the Natural Order of things We ought first to be assured that the Thing is before we make inquiry whether it hath been believed or not For to what purpose is it to find that the Ancients believed it unless we find withal in their Writings some Reason of this their Belief And again on the other side what harm is it to us to be ignorant whether Antiquity believed it or not so long as we know that the Thing is And whereas there are some who to establish the Supream Authority of the Fathers alledge the Counsel which Sisinnius a Novatian and Agellius his Bishop gave of old to Nectarius Archbishop of Constantinople and by him to Theodosius the Emperour which was that they should demand of the Arrians whether or not they would stand to what the Fathers who died before the breaking forth of their Heresie had delivered touching the Point debated betwixt them this is hardly worth our consideration For this was a Trick only devised by a subtil head and which is worse by a Schismatick and consequently to be suspected as a Captious Proposal purposely made to entrap the Adverse party rather than any free and ingenuous way of Proceeding For if this manner of Proceeding had been right and good how came it to pass that among so many Catholick Bishops as there were none of them all advised it How came it to pass that they were so ignorant of the Weapons wherewith the Enemies of the Church were to be encountred How came it about that it should be proposed only by a young fellow who was a Schismatick too And if it were approved of as right and good Counsel why did Gregory Nazianzene S. Basil and so many other of the Fathers who wrote in that Age against the Arrians deal with them wholly in a manner out of the Scriptures And certainly those Holy men besides their Christian Candor which obliged them to this way of Proceeding took a very wise course in so doing For if this Controversie had been to be decided by the Authority of Humane Writers I know not how any man should have been able to make good that which this Gallant so confidently affirmeth in the place aforecited namely That none of the Ancients ever said that the Son of God had any beginning of his Generation considering those many strange Passages that we yet at this day meet with touching this Particular in the Books of the First Fathers which is the reason also why the Arrians alâ—ledged their Testimonies as we see they do in the Books of Athanasius Hilary and others of the Ancients who wrote against them But what need we insist so long upon a Story which is rejected by Cardinal Baronius as being an idle Tale devised by Zozomene who was a Novatian in favour of those of his own Sect. The Counsel of Vincentius Lirinensis which he gives us in a certain little Discourse of his which is very highly prised by Gennadius is accounted by many men much more worthy of our Consideration For having first told us that he speaks not of any Authors Save only of such who having holily wisely and constantly lived preached and persevered in the Catholick Faith and Communion obtained the favour at length either to dye faithfully in Christ or else had the happiness of being crowned with Martyrdom for Christs sake he further addeth That we are to receive as undoubtedly true certain and definitive whatsoever all the aforesaid Authors or at least the greatest part of them have clearly frequently and constantly affirmed with an Vnanimous Consent receiving retaining and delivering it over to others as it were joyntly and making up all of them but one Common and Vnanimous Council of Doctors But this Passage of his is so far from advancing the Supreme Authority which some would attribute to the Fathers in Matters of Faith that on the contrary I meet with something in it that makes me more doubt of their Authority than I did before For I find by this mans discourse that whatsoever his reason was whether good or bad he clearly appears to have had a very great desire of bringing all Differences in Religion before the Judgment seat of the Fathers and to the same end he labours to prove with the same eagerness and passion that their Judgment is inâ—allible in these Cases But in the mean time I find him so perplexed and troubled in bringing out that which he would have as that it appears sufficiently that he saw well enough that what he desired was not so agreeable to Truth For he hath so qualified his Proposition and bound it in with so many Limitations as that it is very probable that if all these Conditions which he here requires were any where to be found we might
then safely perhaps rely upon the Writings of the Fathers But then on the other side it is so very difficult a matter to meet with such a Conjunction of so many several Quâ—lifications as that I very much doubt whether we shall be ever able to enjoy this happiness or not For first of all for the persons of those men whose Testimonies we alledge he requireth that they should be such as not only Lived but also Taught and which is more persevered too not only in the Faith but in the Communion also of the Catholick Church And then for fear of being surprised and taken at this Word he comes over us with a new supply and qualifies his words with a Restriction of Three Adverbs and tells Us that they must have lived and taught Holily Wisely and Constantly But yet this is not all for besides all this they must have either died in Christ or for Christ So that if they Lived but did not Teach or if they both Lived and Taught but did not Persevere or if they both Lived Taught and also Persevered in the Faith but not in the Communion or else in the Communion but not in the Faith of the Catholick Church or if they yet Lived and Taught Holily but not Wisely or on the contrary Wisely but not Holily and if in the last place after all this having performed all the Particulars before set down they did not at last die either in Christ or for Christ they ought not according to this mans Rule be admitted as Witnesses in this Case Certainly he might have stopped here and not have gone on still with his Modifications as he doth limiting the number and the words of these witnesses For what Christian ever made scruple of receiving the Opinion of such a one as had both Holily Wisely and Constantly lived and taught in the Faith and Communion of the Catholick Church For you might hence very well rest assured that whatsoever he had delivered was True and consequently Fit to be believed for how could he have taught Wisely and Constantly if he had taught any False Doctrine All tha he here therefore promiseth us is no more but this That we should be sure not to be deceived provided that we believed no other Doctrines save what were Holy and True This Promise of his is like that which little Children are wont to make when they tell you that you shall never die if you but eat always Neither do I believe that there is any man in the World so perverse and wilful as not readily to assent to such a man as he assuredly knew to be so qualified as Vincentius Lirinensis would here have him to be But seeing that it is necessary that we should first know the Quality of the Witness before we hear him it remaineth in my judgment that before we do so much as hear any of the Fathers we ought to be first assured that he was so qualified in every particular according to Vincentius his Rule before layed down Now I would very fain have any one inform me how it is possible for us to know this Who will assure us that Athanasius St. Cyrill or what other Father you please both Lived Taught Persevered and Died Holily Wisely and Constantly in the Faith and Communion of the Catholick Church This can never be done without a most Exact Inquiry made both into their Life and their Doctrines which is an Impossible thing considering the many Ages that have passed from Their times down to Ours But yet supposing that this were a Possible thing it would nevertheless be of no use at all as to this Authors purpose For He will have us hear the Fathers to the end that we may be by Them instructed in the Truth Now that we may be rightly informed whether or no they were so Qualified as is before required we ought necessarily to know first of all what the Truth is For how is it otherwise possible that we should be able to judg whether they have taught Holily and Wisely And if you were before-hand instructed in the Truth what need have you then to hear Them and to desire to be instructed in it by Them You may indeed make use of them for the Illustration and Confirmation of that which you knew before but you cannot learn any Truth from them which you knew not before And if you understand the Maxime before alledged in another sense and take this Wisdom and Holiness this Faith and Communion of the Catholick Church therein mentioned for a shadow onely and the Superficies and Outward Appearance of these things and for a Common and Empty Opinion grounded meerly upon the Publick Voice of the People and not upon an Exact Knowledge of the thing it self it will then prove to be manifestly False those Persons who have but the Outward Appearance only and not the Reality of these Qualities being no way fit to be admitted as Witnesses much less to be receiv'd as the Supreme Judges in the Point of the Christian Faith So that this Proposition is either Impossible if you understand it as the words seem to sound or else it is False if you take it in any larger sense The like Exceptions may be made against those other Conditions which he there further requires touching the Number and the Words of these Witnesses For he alloweth not the force of a Law to any thing but what hath been delivered either by All or else by the Greatest part of them If he here by All mean All the Fathers that ever have been or but the Greatest Part of them onely he then puts us upon an Impossibility For taking the whole Number of Fathers that ever have been the Greatest and perhaps too the Best Part of them have not written any thing at all and among those that have written how many hath Time devoured and how many hath the False Dealings of Men either wholly suppressed or else corrupted and altered It is therefore evidently Impossible to know what the Opinions have been either of All or of the Greatest Part of the Fathers in this sense And if he restrains this All and this Greatest Part to those who appear at this day either in their own Books or in Historians and the Writings of other men it will concern us then to inquire Whether or no by All he means All promiscuously without distinguishing them by their several Ages wherein they lived or else Whether he would have us distinguish them into several Classes putting together in the same Rank all those that lived in one and the same Age and receiving for Truth whatsoever we find to have been held and confirmed by the greatest part of them Now both these ways agree in this one thing namely that they render the Judgment of the Christian Faith wholly Casual and make it depend upon divers and sundry Accidents which have been the Cause of the Writings of the Fathers being either preserved or lost For put the case that
to the Time Judgment Age and Disposition they were of when they wrote them Now although this want of diligence and of deliberation appears of it self evidently enough to any man that readeth the Fathers but with the least attention that may be yet notwithstanding that I may not leave this Assertion of mine only said and not proved at all I shall here give you some few Instances for a taste only First of all there are very many Pieces among the Works of the Fathers which were written in haste and some too which were meer Extemporary Discourses and such as in all probability the Authors of them themselves would have found many things therein which would have required correction had they had but leisure to have reviewed the same St. Hierome in a Prologue of his to some certain Homilies of Origen translated by him into Latine saith that Origen made them and delivered them in the Church Ex tempore Touching these therefore we are pretty well satisfied by St. Hierome but how many in the mean time may there be of the like nature among those so many Homilies of St. Chrysostome St. Augustine and others all which we perhaps imagine to have been leisurely and deliberately studied digested and composed which yet some sudden occasion might perhaps have put forth into the World upon an instant and which were as soon born as conceived and as soon published as made St. Hierome often telleth us that he dictated what he wrote in haste Thus at the end of that long Epistle which he wrote to Fabiola he confesseth that he had dispatched it in one Evening only when he was now setting sail for a journey And which is a matter of much more importance he saith in another place That he had allotted himself but three days for the translating of the three Books of Solomon namely the Proverbs Ecclesiastes and the Canticles which yet a man will hardly be able to read over well and exactly in a month by reason of the great difficulties he will there meet withal as well in the Words and Phrases as in the sense And yet for all this if what the Church of Rome pretends to be true this little Three-days Work of St. Hierome hath proved so fortunate as to deserve not only to be approved and highly esteemed but even Canonized also by the Council of Trent Now whether the will of God be that we should receive this Translation of his as his pure Word or not I shall leave to those who have a desire and ability to examine However I dare confidently affirm that St. Hierome himself never had any the least thought or hope that ever this Piece of his should one day come to this honour it being a thing not to be imagined but that he would have taken both more time and more pains in the thing if ever he had either desired or foreseen this And thus it sometimes falls out that Men have better Fortune than ever they wished for The same Author saith at the end of another Piece of his That it was an Extemporary and Running business as he there speaks and hudled out so fast as that his Tongue over-run the Hands of his Amanuenses and by its Volubility and swiftness in a manner confounded them and their Cifres and Abbreviations He elsewhere excuseth in like manner another Work of his of no small importance neither which is his Commentary upon the Gospel of St. Matthew telling us that by reason he had been straitned in time he was constrained to dictate it in very great haste And so likewise in the Preface to his Second Commentary upon the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians he confesseth that he wrote it in so great haste as that he many times made as much of it as came to a thousand lines in a day In a word that I may not cloy the Reader with producing all the Instances of the same kind that I could here bring in it is his ordinary way of excusing himself either in his Prefaces or else at the closing up of all his Discourses to say that either the Messenger was in haste or some other design called him away or else some other the like cause whatsoever it were was pretended So that he never did any thing almost but in haste and at full speed Sometimes again either some sickness had taken him off his metal or else the study of the Hebrew had let his Tongue grow rusty or his Pen is not now able to reach its wonted pitch Now I would fain know if so be he would have us receive all his sayings as Oracles and did not indeed desire us to excuse rather some things in him and to forgive him some others why should he use these speeches unto us Who ever heard a Judge excuse himself by reason of the shortness of the Time Would not this be rather to accuse than to excuse himself by making such an Apology as this for himself for as much as the giving of over-hasty Judgment in any Cause is a very great fault And in my Opinion the Fathers could not more clearly have deprived themselves of this Dignity of being our Judges wherewith we will invest them whether they will or no than by writing and speaking after this manner But yet although St. Hierome had not given us these Advertisements which yet ought to make us look well also to the rest of the Fathers it appeareth evidently enough out of their very Writings themselves how little both time and diligence they bestowed in composing the greatest part of them For otherwise how could so many small trifling Faults both in History Grammar Philosophy and the like have escaped so great and Eminent Persons who were so well furnished with all sorts of Literature How happened it that they so either forgot or else mistook themselves as they have sometimes done I shall here give the Reader some few examples of this kind not to take off any thing from the Praises due to these Learned Persons as if we thought them really to have committed these Errours out of ignorance but rather to let the World see that they did not alwayâ— make use of their whole stock of Worth and Learning and that sometimes they either could not or else would not make use but of some part only of their Knowledge and of their Time which is a most certain Argument that they had never any intention of being received by us as Judges in Points of Faith I shall not say much of their Errours in matter of Time which are both very notable ones and also very frequent with them as for example where Justin Martyr saith that David lived Fifteen Hundred years before the Manifestation of the Son of God it being very apparent by observing the Course of Times derived along through Histories both Sacred and Profane that from the death of David to the Birth of our Saviour Christ there passed no more
were And whereas it is objected against us by Jovinian saith he that God in the Second Benediction permitted the Eating of Flesh which he did not in the First he is to take notice that in like manner as the liberty to put away a mans wife according to the words of our Saviour was not granted from the beginning but was afterwards permitted to mankind for the hardness of their heart in like manner was the Eating of Flesh unknown until the Flood but after the Flood the Sinews and Virulency of Flesh were thrust into our Mouths as the Quails were given to the People of Israel murmuring in the Wilderness Certainly Divorce is a thing which is evil in it self and is contrary to the Creation of the Man and of the Woman and to Marriage also which was instituted by God in Paradise as is divinely proved by our Saviour disputing with the Jews touching this Point If therefore the Eating of Flesh be like it this also is evil and unlawful in it self Marcion and the Manichees could hardly have said more than this In another place he seems to be of Opinion that our Saviour hath utterly forbidden the use of an Oath to Christians which piece of Doctrine is evidently contrary both to the Scriptures and to Reason It will be a hard matter also to clear him from the suspicion of that Errour some Traces whereof are apparently to be seen in St. Cyprian touching the Efficacy of the Sacraments as we have observed before For do but hear what he says The Priests also saith he who serve at the Eucharist and distribute the Blood of our Saviour to his People commit a great impiety against the Law of Christ in thinking that the Eucharist is made by the Words and not by the Life of the Person that Consecrates it and that the Solemn Prayers only of the Priests are necessary and not their Merits also Touching the state of the Blessed after the Resurrection he says neither but very faintly that they shall live without eating What then will you say these be his own words shall we then eat after the Resurrection I know not that I confess for we find no such thing written Yet if I were to speak my Opinion I do not think we shall eat And to give our Judgment in general of this Author I do not know whether or no we may allow for good and perfectly conformable to the Discipline of our Saviour-Christ the course which he ordinarily observes in his Disputations wresting the words of his Adversaries quite besides the Authors intention and framing to himself such a sense as is not at all to be found in them and then fiercely encountring this Giant of his own making mixing withal strange abusive language and biting Girds and the like tart expressions borrowed from profane Authors in which kind of Learning he was indeed very excellent St. Augustine in the Contestation that he had with him said that the Holy Ceremonies of the Jews though they were abolished by Jesus Christ might yet notwithstanding in the beginning of Christianity be observed by those who had been brought up in them from their Infancy even after they had believed in Jesus Christ provided only that they did not put their trust in them because that that Salvation which was signified by these Holy Ceremonies was imparted unto us by Jesus Christ which Doctrine of his is both godly and consonant also to what is urged by St. Paul in the first Epistle to the Corinthians and elsewhere touching Christian Liberty by which we both may and ought to use or abstain from such things as are in themselves indifferent according as shall be requisite for the Edification of our Neighbour Now St. Hierome here will needs make him believe that his meaning is that all those who believed among the Jews were subject to the Law and that the Gentiles were the only People whom the Faith in Christ had exempted from this Yoak And then presently doth he hereupon take occasion to pass as tart and as biting a Jear upon him as he could saying that since it was so that all the Believers among the Jews were bound to observe the Law St. Augustine himself who was the most Eminent Bishop in the whole World should do well to publish this his Opinion and to endeavour to bring over all his fellow Bishops to be of his mind But he had then to deal with an able Adversary and one that knew well enough how to make good his words and to clear them from that Interpretation that the other had put upon them and to overthrow whatsoever he had impertinently urged against him as any may see in that Excellent and Divine Answer of his to St. Hierome touching this Point and the whole substance of his Letter The Case was otherwise betwixt him and Ruffinus for there he grappled with one much below his Match and dealt his blows upon an arrant Wooden Statue one that had scarcely any Reason in what he said and yet much less dexterity in defending himself But the sport of it is to see that after he hath handsomly belaboured and pricked this pitiful thing from head to foot and sometimes till the blood followed he at length protesteth at the end of his first Book that He had spared him for the Love of God and that he had not afforded words to his troubled breast and had set a watch before his mouth according to the Example of the Psalmist And in another place he reads him a long Lecture telling him that they were not to use railing Language in their Disputations nor to leave the Question in hand and to labour to bring in what Accusations they could against each other which are more proper at a Bar than in the Church and fitter to stuff a Lawyers Bill than a Church-mans Papers 'T is true indeed that those who have been galled by him are themselves to blame for as much as He out of his own candid disposition courteously gave them warning himself telling them before-hand that Those that meddle with him had to do with a Horned Beast And yet some perhaps may still very much wonder how it should come to pass that all those Watchings and strict Discipline which he endured in Bethlehem and the Desart of Arabia should not have mortified these Horns to which I have no more to say but this that God by a certain secret and wise Judgment hath suffered these Holy men notwithstanding all those excellent Gifts of Charity Patience and Meekness wherewith they were abundantly endued sometimes to let fall such slips as these upon several particular occasions to let us understand that there is nothing absolutely perfect but God alone all men how accomplished soever they can possibly be carrying always about them some Reliques of Humane Infirmity But however it be this Course of St. Hierome's makes me doubt that he hath dealt no better
Bold Assertion of his at once we need go no further than to the very Point it self touching which he proposed it For whom will he ever be able to perswade that All the Fathers have written and said the very same things touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost It is evident that sometimes they will have It to Proceed from the Son also as S. Basil by name hath expressed himself in that Passage of his which is alledged by the Latins out of his Book against Eunomius which Piece yet the Greeks say is forged and as the Fathers of the Western Church have most expresly declared themselves in many places But yet I cannot possibly see how we can say That they have All been of this Opinion I shall not here meddle with those other Authorities produced by the Greeks out of the Fathers which their Adversaries put by as well as they can oftentimes most miserably wresting and stretching upon the Rack the Words and Meaning of the Fathers But that Passage of Theodoret in his Refutation of S. Cyril's Anathema's is so clear and express as that nothing can be more S. Cyril had said in his IX Anathema That the Holy Ghost proceeded Properly from the Son Theodoret answereth That it is both Impious and Blasphemous to say that the Holy Ghost hath its Subsistence from the Son or by the Son If he mean saith he that the Holy Ghost proceedeth properly from the Son as heing of the same Nature with It and as proceeding from the Father we shall willingly agree with him and shall receive his Doctrine as Sound and Pious But if he mean that the Holy Ghost hath its Subsistence from the Son or by the Son we must then reject it as Impious and Blasphemous He could not have thrown by this Proposition of S. Cyril more bluntly or in courser Terms And yet for all this so flat giving him the Lie as it were and his so insolent rejecting of an Opinion that was then received by the Church as the Latins pretend S. Cyril replies no more but this That the Holy Ghost altbough It proceed from the Father yet nevertheless is not a Stranger to the Son since He hath all things common with the Father Why did he not cry out against him as an Heretick as he many times elsewhere doth with much less reason if at least you must needs have it granted you that the Opinion of the Church at that time was That the H. Ghost proceeded from the Son Why did he not take it very ill at his hands that he should in so insolent a manner reject as Impious and Blasphemous a Proposition that was so Holy and so True Why did he not call the Whole Church in to be his Warrant for what he had said if so be it had Really been the General Belief of the Church at that time And how comes it to pass that in stead of all this he rather returns so tame an Answer as seems rather to betray his own Cause and something also to encline to the contrary Opinion of his Adversary For it is evident that neither Theoderet nor yet any of the Modern Greeks ever held That the Holy Ghost was a Stranger to or was Unconcerned in the Son seeing they all confess That these three to wit the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are One and the same God who is Blessed for ever Whosoever shall but diligently consider these things for we cannot stand any longer upon the Examination of them he cannot in my Judgment but confess that the Church had not as yet declared it self or determined any thing touching this Point and that these Doctors spake herein each Man his own Private Opinion only and according as the Present Occasion of Disputation led him to speak where you shall have them contradicting one another in like manner as is usual in speaking of things not as yet throughly examined or expresly determined insomuch that it would grieve a Man to see how the Greeks and the Latins toil and sweat to no purpose each of them labouring to bring over the Fathers to speak to their Side and fearfully wresting their Words whensoever they seem to be but never so little ambiguous and ever and anon accusing one another of having corrupted the Ancients Writings whensoever they are found to speak expresly against them and when all is done leaving those who either read or hear them without any Prejudice very much unsatisfied whereas it had been much more easie to have honestly confessed at first that which is but too apparent that the Fathers as in this so in many other Points of Religion have not all been of one and the same Perswasion And whereas Bessarion that he may clude this Testimony of Theodoret affirms That he was cast forth of the Church for having denied that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son and that he afterwards publickly confessed his Error at the Council of Cbalcedon where he was received into the Church again all this I say is only a Piece of Grecian Confidence which shews more clearly than all the rest how much this Man was carried away with his Passion and the violence of his Affection to the Latin Church For I beseech you in what Ancient Author had he ever read that Theodoret was I do not say Condemned or Excommunicated but so much as Reproved or Accused onely for having maintained any Erroneous Opinion touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost We have the Acts of the Council of Ephesus where he was Excommunicated We have the Letters of S. Cyril wherein he again received into the Communion of the Church John Patriarch of Antioch and all his Followers of which number Theodoret was the Chief We have the Council of Chalcedon where Theodoret after some certain Cryings out of his Adversaries against him was at length received by the whole Assembly as a Catholick Bishop and was admitted to sit amongst them In which of all these Authentick Pieces is there so much as one word spoken touching this Opinion of his concerning the Point of the Proceeding of the Holy Ghost S. Cyril himself that is to say those of his Party did not at all condemn what he said touching this Particular but he rather contented himself in excusing or if you please in defending onely his own Opinion The Business for which Theodoret was questioned in the Councils of Ephesus and of Chalcedon had nothing in the World to do with this touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost for the Question was onely there touching the Two Natures of our Saviour Christ whom Nestorius would needs divide into Two Persons John Patriarch of Antioch Theodoret and divers other Eastern Bishops favouring in some sort his Person or being indeed offended rather at the Proceeding of the Council of Ephesus against him and withal rejecting several things that were contained in the Anathemas of S. Cyril Now with what face could this Man tell us after all
of in Christendom namely That the Old Vulgar Translation of the Bible is to be allowed of as Canonical and Authentick in the Church of God The CL Fathers of the Second General Council and the DCXXX of the Fourth were all of them of Opinion That the Ancients had advanced the See of Rome above that of other Bishops by reason of the Preeminence and Temporal Greatness of the City of Rome over other Cities and for the same reason they also thought good to advance in like manner the Throne of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the same Height with the former by reason of the City where he resided being now arrived to the self-same Height of Dignity with Rome it self I assure you that for all this he should now be Anathema Maranatha whosoever should go about to derive the Supremacy of the Pope from any other Original than from TV ES PETRVS PASCE OVES MEAS The Council of Trent Anathematizeth all those whosoever shall deny that Bishops are a Higher Order than Priests and yet S. Hierome and divers others of the Fathers have openly done the same We have already told you here before That the Church of Rome long since Excommunicated the Greeks because they hold That the Holy Ghost proceedeth not from the Son but from the Father onely And yet for all this Theodoret who expresly also demed in Terms that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son as we have shewed in the preceding Chapter was received by the Ancient Church and in particular by Pope Leo too as a True Catholick Bishop without requiring him to declare himself any otherwise or to give them any Satisfaction touching this Point And indeed we might reckon up very many the like Differences betwixt the Roman and the Ancient Church but these Examples we have here produced will suffice to let the World see how the Church of Rome holdeth That the Authority of the Opinions of the Ancients ought to be accounted Supreme We shall proceed in the next place to say something of the Ceremonies in the Christian Religion The first of all is Baptism which takes us out of Natures Stock and engraffs us into Jesus Christ Now it was a Custom heretofore in the Ancient Church to plunge those they Baptized over head and ears in the Water as both Tertullian S. Cyprian Epiphanius and others testifie And indeed they plunged them thus three several times as the same Tertullian and S. Hierome both inform us And this is still the Practice both of the Greek and of the Russian Church even at this very day And yet notwithstanding this Custom which is both so Ancient and so Universal is now abolished by the Church of Rome And this is the reason that the Muscovites say That the Latins are not Rightly and Duly Baptized because they are not wont to use this Ancient Ceremony in their Baptism which they say is expresly enjoyned them in the Canons of Joannes Metropolitanus whom they hold to have been a Prophet And indeed Gregory the Greek Monk who was notwithstanding a great Stickler for the Vnion in the Council of Florence doth yet confess in his Answer to the Epistle of Mark Bishop of Ephesus that it is Necessary in Baptism that the Persons to be Baptized should be thrice dipped over Head and Ears in the Water At their coming out of the Water in the Ancient Church they gave them to eat Milk and Honey as the same Authors witness and immediately after this they made them all Partakers also of the Blessed Communion both great and small whence the Custom still remains in Aethiopia of Administring the Eucharist to Little Children and making them take down a small quantity of it as soon as ever they are Biptised What have these our so great Adorers of Antiquity now done with these Ceremonies Where is the Milk or the Honey or the Eucharist which the Ancient Fathers were wont to administer to all immediately after Baptism Certainly these things notwithstanding the Practice of the Ancients have been now long since buried and forgotten at Rome In Ancient Times they often deferred the Baptising both of Infants and of other People as appears by the History of the Emperours Constantine the Great of Constantius of Theodosius of Valentinian and of Gratian in S Ambrose and also by the Orations and Homilies of Gregory Nazianzen and of S. Basil upon this Subject And some of the Fathers too have been of Opinion that it is fit it should be deferred as namely Tertullian as we have formerly noted of him How comes it to pass now that there is not so much as any the least Trace or Footing of this Custom to be found at this day in the Church of Rome Nay whence is it besides that they will not so much as endure the very mention of it and would abhor the Man that should but go about to put it in practice I shall here forbear to speak of the Times of Administring Baptism which was performed ordinarily in the Ancient Church but onely upon the Eves of Easter-day and of Whitsunday Neither shall I say any thing of the Ceremony of the Paschal Taper and the Albes or White Vestments that the new baptised Persons were used to wear all Easter-Week because that it may be thought perhaps that these are too light Circumstances although to say the plain truth if we are to regard the Authority of Men and not the Reason of the Things themselves I do not at all see why all the whole Rites should not still be retained as well as those Exorcisms and Renouncings of the Devil and the World with all its Pomp and Vanities which in Imitation of Antiquity are at this day though very improperly acted by them over little Infants though but of a day old As for the Eucharist Cassander sheweth clearly That it was Celebrated in the Ancient Church with Bread and Wine offered by the People and that the Bread was first broken into several Pieces and then Consecrated afterwards and distributed among the Faithful Notwithstanding the contrary Use hath now prevailed neither do they Consecrate any Bread which is offered by the People which was the Ancient Custom but onely little Wafer Cakes made round in the Form of a Deneere which yet is very sharply reproved in the Old Exposition of the Ordo Romanus c. The same Cassaâ—der also gives us an Account at large how that in Ancient Times the Canonical Prayer and the Consecration of the Eucharist was read out with a loud Voice and in such sort as that the People might all of them be able to hear it that so they might say Amen to it whereas the Priest now pronounceth it with a very low Voice so that none of the Congregation can tell what he says and hence it is that this part of the Liturgy is called Secret We
what Canon of the Ancient Church those single Masses which are now celebrated and said every day where none Communicates but the Priest alone who Consecrates the Host were instituted or permitted and withal how that Respect which they pretend they bear to Antiquity can stand with that Canon of the Council of Trent which saith Whosoever shall say that those Masses wherein the Priest alone Communicateth Sacramentally are unlawful and fit to be abolished let him be Accursed seeing that these kind of Masses were utterly unknown to the Ancient Church as Cassander proveth at large in his Consultatio de Articulis Religionis written to the Emperour Ferdinand But that which most of all gives offence to those that are devoted to Aâ—â—tiqâ—ity is the Custom which the Church of Rome hath introduced and established by the express Decrees and Canons of two of their General Councils the one holden at Constance and the other at Trent of not allowing the Communion of the Cup to any save only to the Priest who Consecrates the same excluding by this means first of all all the Laity and secondly all the Priests also and other of the Clergie who had not the Consecrating of it whereas the whole Ancient Church for the space of fourteen hundred years admitted both the one and the other to the Communion of the Holy and Blessed Cup as well as to the participation of the Consecrated Bread as those of these two Councils themselves confess in the Preface to this New Constitution And this is still the practice also at this day among all Christians throughout the World both Russians Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants and all others in general except the Latines only who are of the Communion of the Church of Rome But besides that the Ancients permitted this Communion under both Kinds as they use to speak it seemeth which is yet much more that unless it were in some extraordinary Cases they did not at all permit the Communicating under one Kind only For otherwise why should Pope Leo give this very thing as a mark to distinguish the Manichees from the Catholicks When they sometimes are present at our Mysteries saith he that so they may hide their infidelity they so order the matter in their participating of these Mysteries as that they receive the body of Christ into their unworthy mouth but will noâ— take into it one drop of the Blood of our Redemption and he further adds That he gives his Auditory this advertiseâ—â—â—â— that thâ—y may know these men by this Mark. Should this Pope now arise from his grave and come into the World again he would certainly believe that all those who adhere to his See were turned Manichees except the Consecrating Priests only How bâ—sides will you be able without this Hypothesis to explain that Dâ—cree of Pope Gelasius which saith We are informed that there are some who having taken a small portion of the Sacred Body only forbear to partake of the Cup of the Consecrated Blood doing this as we hear out of I know not what superstitious conceit wherewith they are possessed We therefore will that they either partake of the whole Sacrament or else that they be wholly put back from communicating of either for asmuch as there cannot without very great Sacriledge any division be made in one and the same Mystery And in the last place what can you otherwise say to that story which is related by the Accusers of Ibas Bishop of Edessa how that having one time made but a very scanty provision of Wine for the service of the Altar which after it had been begun to be distributed about to the Communicants began quickly to fail He perceiving this beckned to those who delivered about the Holy Body that they should come back again because there was no more left of the blood of our Saviour For what need was there of making them to give over their business because there was no more Wine if so be it was at that time lawful to distribute the Bread alone without the other Kind of Wine If the Councils of Trent and of Constance had accounted the Authority of the Fathers to have been Supreme how came it to pass that they abolished that which had for so long time and so constantly been observed by them And how again doth this other Canon of the Council of Trent suit with that Respect which they pretend to bear toward Antiquity where it is said that Whosoever shall say that the Holy Catholick Church hath not been induced by just Causes and Reasons to communicate to the Laity and even to the Priests too who do not Consâ—â—rate under the Kind of Bread only or that it hath â—rred in this Point let him be Accursed For it seemeth to be no very easie matter to be able to acquit the Modern Church without condemning the Ancient seeing their Practices have been manifestly contradictory to each other the Modern Church forbidding that which the Ancient permitted and the Ancient Church seeming to have expresly forbid that which the Modern commandeth How can you say that the one had just Reasons for what it did unless you withal grant that the other in doing the contrary had either no Reason at all or else but very unjust ones seeing it is most clear that neither the World nor the Times are any whit changed within this two hundred years from what they were before For it is impossible for any man to alledge any Reason for the Practice of the Moderns which should not in like manner have obliged the Ancients nor again to produce any Reason for the contrary Practice of the Ancients which doth not in like manner oblige the Moderns So that of necessity either the one or the other of them must needs have been guilty either of Errour or at least of Negligence and of Ignorance We may very well therefore conclude that the Church of Rome seeing it believes it self to be Infallible manifestly in this particular condemned the Ancient Church as guilty of Ignorance or of Negligence at the least which in my Judgment seems not so well to become those persons who do nothing else but continually preach unto us the Honour of Antiquity But here now will all the true Honourers of Antiquity have as good sport as can be For as for those Reasons by which the Fathers of the Council of Trent were induced to make the aforementioned Decree how will they say may we be able to come to the knowledge whether they were just or not seeing that they themselves produce none at all Whereas the Reasons which moved the Ancients to do as they did and which you have set down at large in a certain Discourse printed at Paris at the end of Cassanders Works are very solid and clear and in my judgment very full both of Wisdom and of Charity But we shall not need to enter any further into this Contestation it
is sufficient for my purpose that the Church of Rome in doing thus hath manifestly abolished a very ancient Custom in the Church Besides these Ceremonies which were practised by the Fathers in Baptism and in the Eucharist they have said by many other also which have been heretofore in use in the Church I shall not here speak of the Fasting upon Saturdays which is observed by the Church of Rome contrary to the ancient practice of the whole Christian Church besides who all accounted it unlawful because this difference in Practice is as ancient as St. Augustine's time and therefore ought not to be imputed to the Modern Church of Rome I shall for the same reason also pass by that which Firmilianâ—s saith namely how that in his time that is to say about two hundred and fifty years after the Nativity of our Saviour Christ Those of Rome did not in all things observe whatsoever had been delivered from the beginning and that they did in vain alledge the Authority of the Apostles But this I shall desire the Reader to take notice of that anciently it was a general Custom throughout all Christendom not to Kneel neither upon the Lords days nor upon any day bâ—twixt Easter day and Whitsunday which Custom hath been generally abolished by the whole Church of Rome and yet notwithstanding whether you consider the Antiquity or whether you look upon the Authority of those who both practised this themselves and also recommended it to our observation you will hardly find any more venerable Custom than this For the Author of the Questions and Answers attributed to Justin Martyr makes mention of this Custom and withal gives the Reason and Ground of it and besides proveth by a certain passage which he produceth out of Irenaeus that it had its beginning in the Apostolical Times Tertullian also speaks of it and both Epiphanius and St. Hierome reckon it among the Institutions of the Church and which is yet more than all this the Sacred General Council of Nice authorized the same by an express Canon made to that purpose For as much as there are some say these CCC XVIII Venerable Fathers who Kneel upon the Lords Day and upon the days of Pentecost to the end that in all Parishes or as we now speak Dioceses there may be the same Order observed in all things this Holy Synod ordaineth that on these days they all pray Standing And this ancient Constitution was revived again and explained in the Council of Constantinople in Trullo toward the end of the seventh Century where it was expresly forbidden to Kneel during the space of those twenty four hours that pass betwixt Saturday Evening and Sunday Evening Every body knows also how that they have abrogated the Fast that was wont to be observed upon the Fourth day of the week that is to say on Wednesday which yet was the Practice of the Ancients as appears by what we find in Ignatius in Peter Bishop of Alexandria and a Martyr in Epiphanius Clemens Alexandrinus and others By the same Liberty have those Vigils been abolished which were ordinarily kept by the Ancient Church and both approved and defended also by St. Hierome against Vigilantius who found fault with them though his Opinion hath now at length found more favour in the World than St. Hierome's The same Father in another place delivers unto us for an Apostolical Tradition that Custom which they had in his time of not suffering the people to depart out of the Church upon Easter Eve till midnight was past What is now become of this Custom which was not only an ancient one but was derived also from the Apostles themselves if you dare believe St. Hierome We are informed from several Hands that that Command of Abstaining from Blood and from Things strangled was for a long time observed in the Church And it appears evident enough that iâ— was most Religiously kept in the Primitive times both by the Testimony of Tertullian and of Eusebius And the Council of Constantinople in Trullo excommunicates all those of the Laity and deposeth all those of the Clergie that shall offend therein And Pamelius in his Notes upon Tertullians Apologeticks informs us that it is not long since the observation of this Custom was first laid a side among Christians it being not much above four hundred 〈◊〉 since there was some certain Penalties appointed for those that should violate the same And yet notwithstanding for all its Antiquity and Vniversality it is at length quite vanished the Church of Rome having in very gentle wise and by little and little laid it asleep â—no man that I know of having taken the least notice either of the Time when or the Manner how this was done Only this we all see plainly enough that it is now quite out of Use The like may be said of that Custom of Praying for the Saints Departed which was clearly the Practice of the Ancients We pray saith Epiphanius for the Just the Fathers the Patriarchs the Prophets Apostles Evangelists Martyrs c. that we may distinguish the Lord Jesus Christ from the order of Men by that Honour which we pay unto Him We have also some of their Prayers to this purpose yet remaining as namely in the Liturgy of St. James And in the Syriack Liturgie of St. Basil after they had mentioned the Patriarchs the Prophets John Baptist St. Stephen the Virgin Mary and all the rest of the Saint they at last added We daily send up our Prayers and Supplications unto thee for them And a little after Lord remember also saith the Priest all those who are departed this life and the Orthodox Bishops who have made a clear and open Profession of the true Faith from the Apostles Peter and James to this day of Ignatius Dionysius c. And then he saith with a loud voice Remember also Lord those who have persevered even to Blood for the Word of a Good Fear So likewise in the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom We offer unto thee this Reasonable Service for all those who havâ— departed in thy Faith c. And yet notwithstanding the Church of Rome hath utterly abolished this Custom and without all question believes that you could not do the Saints a greater injury than if you should now make any such Supplications for them Those that are curious may obserue many other the like differences betwixt the Antients and the Church of Rome in their Customs and Ceremonies Neither is there any whit less in their Discipline One of the chiefest of these Differences and which is indeed the Original of a great part of the rest is in the Elections and Ordinations of Ecclesiastical Ministers which is the true Basis and Ground-work of the Discipline and Ministry of the Church It is clear that in the Primitive times they depended partly on the People and not wholly on
Rome also approved of this Resolution of his of bringing to tryal so soon as they should be at rest this whole business touching those who had fallen during the Persecution in a full Assembly of the Bishops Priests Deacons and Confessors together with those of the Laity who had continued constant and had not yielded to Idolatry And that which in my judgment is very well worth our Observation is that St. Cyprian himself writing to Cornelius Bishop of Rome saith that He doth not doubt but that according to that Mutual Love which they ought and paid to each other he did always read those Letters which he received from him to the most Flourishing Clergie of Rome that were his Assistants and to the most Holy and most numerous People Whence it appears that at Rome also the People had their Vote in the managing of Ecclesiastical Affairs I shall not need here to add any more to shew how much the Authority and Example of the Ancients in this Particular are now slighted and despised it being evident enough to every man that the People are not only excluded from the Councils and Consistories of the Bishops but that besides that man would now be taken forâ—an Heretick that should now but propose or go about to restore any such thing But I beseech you now do but a little fancy to your selves an Archbishop who writing to the Pope should say unto him thus Most dear Brother I exhort you and desire of you that what you are wont honourably to do of your own accord you would now do it at my request namely that this Epistle may be read to the Flourishing Clergie that are your Assistants there and also to the most holy and most numerous People Should not the writer think you of such a Letter as this be laught at as a sensless foolish Fellow if at least he escaped so and met with no worse usage And yet notwithstanding this is the very Request that St. Cyprian made to Pope Cornelius But as the Bishops and the rest of the Clergie have deprived the People of all those Priviledges which had been conferred upon them by Antiquity as well in the Election of Prelates as in other Ecclesiastical Affairs in like manner is it most evident that the Pope hath ingrossed into his own hands not only this Booty which they had rob'd the People of but also in a manner all the rest of their Authority and Power as well that which they heretofore enjoyed according to the Ancient Canons and Constitutions of the Church as that which they have since by many several admirable means by little and little acquired in the space of some whole Centuries of years All this is now quite vanished I know not how and swallowed up by Rome in a very little time The CCC XVIII Fathers of the Council of Nice ordained That every Bishop should be created by all the Bishops of that Province if it were possible or at least by three of them if so be the whole number could not so conveniently be brought together yet with this Proviso that the absent Bishops were conseâ—ting also to the said Ordination and that the Power and Authority in all such Actions should belong to the Metropolitan of each several Province Which Ordinance of theirs is both very agreeable to the Practice of the preceding Ages as appears by that LXVIII Epistle of St. Cyprian which we cited a little before and was also observed for a long time afterward by the Ages following as you may perceive by the Epistle of the Fathers of the I. Council of Constantinople to Pope Damasus and also by the Discourse of those that sate Presidents at the Council of Chalcedon touching the Rights of the Patriarch of Constantinople in his own Diocess And yet notwithstanding all this the whole World knows and sees what the Practice of the Church of Rome at this day is and how that there is not at all left to the Metropolitans and to their Councils any true Power or Authority in the Ordinations of the Bishops within their own Diocesses but the whole Power in this Case dependeth upon the Church of Rome and upon those whom it hath intrusted herein either with their own liking or otherwise And indeed all Bishops are to make their Acknowledgments of Tenure to the Pope neither may they exercise their Functions without his Commission which they shall not obtain neither without first paying down their Money and compounding for their First-fruits calling themselves also in their Titles thus We N. Bishop of N. by the grace of God and of the Apostolical See of which strange Custom and Title you shall not meet with the least Trace or Footstep throughout all the Records of Antiquity not so much as any one of all that vast number of Bishops whose subscriptions we have yet remaining partly in the Councils and partly in their own Books and Histories having ever thus styled himself And as for Provincial and Diocesan Synods where Anciently all sorts of Ecclesiastical Causes were heard and determined as appeareth both by the Canons of the Councils and also by those Examples that we have left us as in the History of Arius and of Eutyches who were both Anathematized the one in the Synod of Alexandria and the other in that of Constantinople they dare not now meddle with any thing except some small petty Matters being of no use in the Greater Causes save only to inquire into them and give in their Informations at Rome Neither may any the meanest Bishop that is be iudged in any Case of Importance and which may be sufficient to Depose him by any but the Pope of Rome his Metropolitan and his Primate and the Synod of his Province and that of his Diocess in the sense that the Ancients took this word having not all of them any Power at all in these Matters unless it be by an Extraordinary Delegation and having then only power to draw up the Business and make it ready for Hearing and so to send it to Rome None but the Pope alone having power to give sentence in such Cases as it is expresly ordained by the Council of Trent I shall here pass by their taking away from the Bishops contrary to the Canons and Practice of Antiquity all Jurisdiction and power over a good part of the Monasteries and other companies of Religious persons both Seculars and Regulars within their Diocesses Their assuming wholly to themselves the Power of Absolving and of Dispensing in several Cases which they call Reserved Cases whereas in Ancient times this Authority belonged equally to all Bishops as also their giving of Indulgences and their proclaiming of Jubilees a thing which was never heard of in any of the first Ages of Christianity And as for the Discipline which was Anciently observed in the Church towards Penitentiaries whether in the punishing them for their offences or else in the receiving them again into the Communion
of the Church it is now wholly lost and vanished We have now nothing left us save only a bare Idea and shadow of it which we meet with in the Writings of the Ancients as namely in the Canonical Epistles of Grâ—gorius Neoâ—aesareâ—nsâ—s of St. Basilâ— and others and in the Councils both General and Provincial Where are now all those several Degrees of Penance which were observed in the Ancient Church where some Offenders were to bewail their sins without the Church some might stand and hear the word among the Câ—techâ—meâ—i others were to cast themselves down at the feet of the Faithful Some of them might partake of the Prayers only of the Church and others were at length received again into the Communion of their Sacraments also Where are those Eight those Ten those Twenty years of Penance which they sometimes imposed upon Offenders All this whole Course of Penance some kind of account whereof we meet with in the Writings of the Ancients is now wholly swallowed up by Auricular Confession wherein no part of the Penance appears at all to the World And as these kinds of Punishments which were most wholesom for the Penitentiaries have been quite abolished by them so have they on the other side introduced other kinds of Penalties which are indeed very beneficial and advantageous to the temporal Estate of the Church of Rome but are most pernicious for the Souls of Offenders such as are their Interdictions when for the offence and that oftentimes too rather a pretended than a true one of one or two single persons or perhaps of a Corporation They will Excommunicate a whole State wherein there are perhaps many millions of people depriving them of the benefit of partaking of the Holy Sacraments which are the means by which the Grace and the Life of Jesus Christ is communicated unto poor Mortals an Example of which kind of proceeding I remember to have been practised by them since my time against the State of Venice In what Code of the Ancient Church can you find where any such strange kind of punishment was ever instituted as that for the offence of a few many millions of Souls should be damned How can you call that Power Apostolical that punisheth in this manner seeing that the Apostolical Power was given for Edification and not for Destruction I would also very fain learn of any man that could tell me upon what Canons of the Ancient Church that Bloody Discipline of the Inquisition is grounded where after they have got out of a poor soul by crafty subtile dealing and many times also by such barbarous inhumane usage as would make a man tremble to read a Confession of his being guilty of Heresie instead of Instruction they give him the sentence of death and so he is forthwith delivered over to the Secular Magistrates to whom notwithstanding in a plain Mockery both of God and Men they give an express Charge that they do not put him to death Yet in case they fail of so doing and if within six or seven days after at the most they do not burn him alive and all this without ever hearing his Cause or what his Offence is They themselves shall be prosecuted by Ecclesiastical Censures and shall be Excommunicated Deposed and deprived of all Dignities both Ecclesiastical and Temporal And that which yet surpasseth all belief is that although the person questioned should confess his fault and should express his hearty sorrow for the same and should by way of satisfaction submit himself to the sharpest penance that could be yet notwithstanding should not the poor wretch escape death if so be he be of the number of those whom they call The Relapsed O most inhumane cruelty and worthy of the Scythians and of the Margaias only but very ill becoming the Disciples of him who commanded his Apostle to pardon his brother not seven times only but seventy times seven as ill beseeming those who so highly boast of being the successors Inheritors of those mild and tender-hearted Ancients who taught That it is the part of Piety not to constrain but to perswade according to our Saviours Example who constrained no man but left every man to his own liberty to follow him or not And that the Devil as he hath no Truth in him comes with Axes and with Hammers to break open the doors of those that must receive him But our Saviour is so meek as that his manner of teaching is If any one will follow me and He that will be my Disciple Neither doth he constrainany one that he cometh unto but rather standeth at the door of every one and knocketh saying Open to me my Sister my Spouse and so entreth when any open unto him but if they delay and will not open unto him he then departeth Because the Truth is not to be pressed with swords and Arrows nor with Souldiers and Armed men but by Perswasion and Counsel who also so sharply reprehended the Arrians for going about to establish and maintain their Religion by Force saying Of whom have they learnt to persecute their Brethren Certainly they cannot say that they have learnt it of the Saints no they have rather had the Devil for their Tutor herein And again Jesus Christ hath commanded us to fly and the Saints have indeed fled sometimes But Persecution is the Invention of the Devil And in another place they protest that By that very course which the Arrians took in banishing which yet is much less than burning all those who would not subscribe to their Decrees they clearly shewed themselves to be contrary to all Christians and to be the friends of the Devil and his Fiends In like manner hath another of the Ancient Fathers exclaimed against the Proceeding of these Arrians who made use not only of the Terrour of Persecution but of the Enticements also of worldly â—iches that so they might the more easily draw men over to their Belief But now alas saith this Father these are the suffrages that recommend the Faith in God Christ is now become weak and void of Power and Ambition gains Credit to his Name The Church terrisieth by Banishment and Imprisonment c. She that was consecrâ—ted by the Terrour of her Persecutors dependeâ—â— now upon the Dignity of thâ—se who are of her Communion She who hath been propagated by banished Priests now her self banisheth Priests She boasteth now that she is beloved of the World who could not be Christs unless the world bated her Agreeable to what another of them saith namely That the Church of Christ was founded by shedding of Blood and by suffering Reproaches rather than by Reproaching others and that it hath grown up by persecutions and hath been crowned by Martyrdoms Another also of the chiefest among the Ancient Fathers reproached an Arrian for having made use of the Sword and Axe in Ecclesiastical matters Those whom he could not deceive by
by the Fathers how can they expect that their Authority should pass for Authentick in any one Let us suppose for instance that they held that there was such a Place as Purgatory But by your Favour will the Protestant say if you have found their Belief to be so erroneous touching the State of the Souls of Departed Saints till the Day of the Resurrection why would you impose upon me a Necessity of subscribing to what they held touching Purgatory The Laws of Disputation ought to be equal and therefore if you by examining this Opinion of the Fathers by Reason and by the Scriptures have found it to be Erroneous why will you not give us leave to try that other touching Purgatory by the same Touch-stone Certainly should we but speak the Truth it is the plainest mocking of the World that can be to cry out as these Men do continually The Fathers The Fathers and to write so many whole Volumes upon this Subject as they have done after they have so dealt with them as you have seen And if it be here objected That the Protestants themselves do also reject many of those Articles which we have before set down we answer That this is nothing at all to the purpose forasmuch as they take the Scriptures and not the Fathers for the Rule of their Faith neither do they press any Man to receive any thing from the hands of the Ancients unless it be grounded upon the Word of God And if lastly you say That the Authority of the Fathers hath no place nor is at all considerable in the Points before set down because that the Churcb hath otherwise determined touching the same this is clearly to grant us that which we would have namely That the Authority of the Fathers is not Supreme And as for the Church that is to say how far the Authority of it extends in these things this is a New Question to be disputed of which I shall not meddle withal at this time Only thus much I shall say That what Authority soever you allow it whether Little or Much you will still find that it will very hardly be able to do any thing touching the Decision of our present Controversies forasmuch as you can never be able to make any use or benefit of this Position till such time as you are assured both What and Where the Church is seeing that the Protestants stiffly deny That it is That which appears at this day at Rome and the greatest Difficulty of all consisting in the Demonstrating this unto them For if they did but once believe that the Church of Rome was the True Church they would immediately joyn themselves with it so that there would not henceforth be need of any further Dispute We shall here conclude therefore That the Alledging the Testimonies of the Fathers upon the Differences that are at this day in Religion is no proper Course for the Decision of them seeing it is no easie matter to discover what their Judgment hath been touching the same by reason of the many Difficulties that we meet with in the Writings of the Ancients neither is it of so sufficient Authority in it self as that we may safely build our Belief upon it since the Fathers themselves have been also subject to Errour neither lastly is it of any force either aâ—â—â—nst the one or the other Party seeing that they both regulate and examine the Opinions Ceremonies and Discipline of the Ancients the One by the Rule of the Scriptures and the Other by that of the Church But here I find that upon this Conclusion Two Questions may arise For seeing that the alledging the Fathers is not sufficient for the deciding of those Points that are now in debate amongst us it may be demanded in the first place What other Course we ought to take for the attaining to the Truth in these Controversies And then secondly How and in what Cases the Writings of the Fathers may be useful unto us Now although both these Questions are without the compass of our present Design yet notwithstanding in regard they so nearly border upon it we shall in the last place say a word or two in answer of them As for the First it would be a hard matter in my Judgment to find out a better way for Satisfaction herein than that which one Scholarius a Greek who is very highly accounted of by those who printed the General Councils at Rome hath proposed This Learned Man in a certain Oration of his which he made at the Council of Florence for the facilitating of the Vnion which was then treated of betwixt the Latins and the Greeks and was afterwards concluded on lays down for a Ground first That we ought not to reject all those things which are not clearly and in express Terms delivered in the Scriptures which is a Pretext and Shift that many of the Hereticks make use of but that we ought to receive with equal Honour whatsoever directly followeth from that which is said in the Scriptures and to reject utterly whatsoever shall be found to be coâ—â—trary to those things which are undoubtedly True He says further That In those things wherein the Scripture hath not clearly expressed it self we must have recourse to the Scripture it self as our Guide to give us light therein by some other Passage where It hath spoken more plainly And after all this he requireth That we should use our utmost Endeavour fully to reconcile those seeming Contradictions which we sometimes there meet withal in several Passages to that purpose taking notice of the Diversity of Times Customs Senses and the like And going on he saith That the Fathers of the Council at Nice after this manner concluded by the Scriptures upon the True Belief touching the Son of God and then applying all this to his present purpose he adds That the Scripture saith clearly and expresly that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and that this is agreed upon by both Sides both by the Greeks and the Latins But that It hath not so expresly declared it self whether the Holy Ghost proceed also from the Son or not and that this is the thing now in Question the Latins affirming it and the Greeks on the other side denying it We ought therefore saith he to prove this from some other things which are there more clearly delivered Which he afterwards performeth and indeed in my Judgment very Learnedly and Happily proving this Doubtful Point out of other Passages that are more Clear And this was the Judgment of this Great Person which will not give any offence to those of the Church of Rome because it came from one that was of their Side Neither do I see what could have been spoken more rationally And indeed this is the Course that is observed in all Sciences whatsoever If thy Adversary doubt of the truth of what thou proposest thou art to prove it by such Maxims as are acknowledged and allowed of